Plus a limerick at the end for @csylka!

Previously on Supernatural:

Sam and Dean had a lot of fun hunting monsters even though they didn’t always know what the monsters were. Way to get our hopes for a fun episode, Show. Then there was poor Cole. As a child, he watched big bad Dean kill his monster-possessed father. It affected him so deeply that he aged at three times normal speed and is now Dean’s senior by several years.

Currently on Supernatural:

Some guy cuts this woman’s throat and starts drinking her blood while she’s still whimpering and struggling.

At the Lair O’ Letters, Sam researches Cain stuff online, but quickly slams his laptop shut when Dean walks into the library. Dean, of course, thinks it’s porn. Sam objects.

Dean tells him about the gross case, but Sam’s having one of those weeks where he’s reluctant for them to hit the road. How much time has passed since Dean supposedly killed Cain? It’s so hard to tell with this show. It seems to be perpetually November.

Once en route to the case, driving under the rain cloud that always follows them, Sam whips out his phone and starts researching again. I like that their fake search engine is called WebSummon. Like they’re summoning demons of information.

Dean figures out Sam’s real pastime and tells him it’s time to face the truth. “Look, we both saw what happened to Cain,” he says. “I’m not happy about it, but I gotta move on.”

The Winchesters walk into the Fayetteville sheriff’s office while they’re in the middle of a little birthday party. Dean very badly wants a piece of cake, but Sam shoos him away. For crying out loud, Sam. He has the Mark of Cain, not diabetes. If someone denied me cake, I’d go evil even faster.

The sheriff tells them that both the victim and her killer were in the US Army. The killer drank gasoline and then set himself on fire, leaving behind a wife and child. The Winchesters are stumped. What kind of monster kills itself?

So they head to the widow’s place for a sit-n-chat. She says her husband was crazy thirsty leading up to all this madness. She doesn’t even know where he was deployed last, because it was super classified. Remember that for later.

They head next to meet with Jemma, whose husband Kit was part of this other dude’s team on deployment. He’s been showing the same symptoms. Yay they get to go sit around on another set.

At first, Jemma acts like everything’s fine, but eventually admits Kit is pretty thirsty lately, and not in the Urban Dictionary sort of way.

Outside, they run into Cole. What a small, tiny, infuriatingly itty-bitty world! Kit is a friend of his and Jemma called him for help. He wedges himself into the Winchesters’ case, saying he has helpful contacts in “Military Intelligence.” (Those are totally air quotes, btw. You’ll see why.) Apropos of nothing, I had almost Sam’s exact haircut a couple of years ago.

They talk about whether or not they’re officially hunting Kit. Cole, of course, doesn’t want them to kill his friend. Sam and Dean explain how things work.

Kit stumbles into a Gas-n-Sip (unrelated to a Sit-n-Chat) and starts drinking bottled water without paying for it. When one of the employees tries to stop him, Kit slashes his throat and shoves him through the refrigerated case door. Then he starts licking the dude’s blood off the floor. Blood is just going to make you thirstier, dumbass. It’s so salty!

********

The Winchesters and Cole stop for dinner at a roadside diner because they’ve gone minutes without sitting. Isn’t Fayetteville about sixty miles from the ocean? Because there is a damned loud foghorn blowing. Anyway, Cole gets an “encrypted” email from his “military intellgence” friend, complete with a video of helmet cam footage from Kit’s “top secret” “confidential” “deployment.” I don’t even know when to stop using sarcastic quotation marks anymore. That friend’s life and/or job are in the crapper now. Thanks, Cole.

Long story short, something attacked Kit’s unit in an Iraqi graveyard.

Dinner is interrupted by news of the Gas-n-Sip attack. Sam gets the deets and passes them along. “The guy’s description… medium build, brown hair. Does that sound like the Kit you know?”

Cole pretends like he’s going to talk to Jemma, but drives away in his Jeep as soon the Winchesters aren’t looking.

Luckily, this is one of those times Sam and Dean get to be smart, so they figure out his deception and follow his ass…

….right to a creepy cabin in the creepy woods, of the sort that monsters on this show seem to favor.

Inside, Cole finds a trail of half-eaten rats and follows it to Kit. Kit, his face bleeding and cracked, tackles Cole to the floor and upchucks a worm into his mouth.

The Winchesters barge in and stomp on a second worm as it’s squealing across the floor. Kit shoves them aside and flees the cabin on foot. He manages to get away because the episode is only half over. Dean tells Cole he’s been infested with a “Khan worm.”

Sam heads off to Jemma’s house to see if Kit has gone back there, while Dean stays in the cabin with Cole. Cole’s already hurting from the worm, grunting and sweating like he’s got a bowel obstruction the size of a watermelon. How did the soldiers not get checked out by doctors while they were still on deployment? It’s not like the worm immediately takes over its host’s mind.

Dean tries shocking Cole with car batteries to make the worm leave his body.

It doesn’t work. Also, somewhere in there, Cole has feelings about Sam and Dean being unsung heroes.

Dean decides to turn the cabin into a “sweat lodge” in order to dehydrate the worm out of Cole’s body.

*********

Meanwhile, Kit has gone back home to drink out of a vase of flowers. Jemma is barely surprised to see him even though his face looks like an even grosser version of this:

Wouldn’t you be afraid of some horrible contagion or radiation poisoning or something? She acts like all he has is a cold sore. Also, how did he beat Sam there? Anyway, she finally freaks out when he tries to slip her a worm.



Luckily Sam pops up to knock him out with the flower vase and tie him up.

*******

With the fireplace going in the cabin, Cole is starting to look sweaty. Shouldn’t they be aiming for a dry heat? They keep drizzling water in front of the fire to make it steamy. Anyway, you know it’s getting pretty hot in there, because Dean is down to only TWO layers of shirts. Maybe three if he’s also wearing an A-shirt under there.

Cole suddenly feels more understanding of Dean and the whole “killing his pappy” thing. He’s starting to feel pretty monstrous himself and asks Dean to tie him up. But as soon as Dean approaches, Cole knocks him over and makes a dash for a bottle of water.

Dean pulls a gun on him. Cole’s all, “You know you’re not gonna do it.” You are talking to the wrong dude, dude. You wanna maybe try tying him up again? No? You’re just gonna abandon that idea? All right, then.

********

Sam explains to Jemma the whole thing about monsters and hunters. Why doesn’t he just say Kit has a hella bad sekrit-government parasitic infection? Can’t take him to the hospital because the military will disappear him. Easy peasy! Anyway, Kit escapes his bonds while they’re having their Sit-n-Chat, further proving that those things are TERRIBLE.

At the same time that Kit jumps Sam, Cole jumps Dean. One of these guys safely barfs up his worm and the other one isn’t a recurring character named Cole and gets shot in the head.

********

Cole heads off for home even though it would probaby be a good idea to wait and make sure he doesn’t have any baby worms in him. This leaves the Winchesters to have one last anvilicious conversation.

I give this episode two Hellhounds

and a box of dewormer:

Plus, a shout-out to @kevvoi, and a limerick for @csylka, for backing my recap Kickstarter!

There once was a monster called Khan worm

Whose path did sully one’s ep'derm.

But you’ll be enduring

If your role is recurring

Unlike guests when their death is confirmed.



–Tippi Blevins