) regains consciousness to find herself alone in the car, her husband nowhere to be seen. Looking for him, and for help, she happens on an old house. Inside is the man she thought she hit on the road--but he's not exactly a man. She runs away and ends up back in the middle of the road in front of an Impala full of Winchesters.The boys try to help out, but Molly refuses to leave without her husband. Her wrecked car, though, has disappeared. They persuade her to go with them so they can talk to the police. But the same spirit comes after them, refusing to allow them to leave the area even in the car. (Truthfully, I expected Dean to be a lot more pissed off when the ghost possessed his car.)
The brothers' theory is that the ghost of a local farmer, Jonah Greeley, haunts the road where he was killed one night a year to find someone to punish for his death. This year it's Molly, and he won't let her leave until he's through with her, or until sunrise, when the hauntings generally stop. They go to Greeley's house to look for the body so they can salt and burn it. In spite of their efforts to protect Molly, she is captured and tortured by Greeley. But in the end, all proves to not be what it seems.
One of the things I like about this show is the different tones it can take from week to week. This slower-paced episode was a nice shift after the intensity of "Born Under a Bad Sign" and the frenetic "Tall Tales." The sense of overall creepiness was well-maintained, and the twist at the end was not only killer but touching. It was also a great example of a "bottle" episode--those single- or limited-set episodes shows sometimes throw in toward the end of the season so they can spend a bit more on the season finales (or just because they've drained too much of the budget). I don't know if that was the case here, but either way they did a great job with the car, some woods, and a dilapidated house. And I won't listen to "House of the Rising Sun" the same way ever again...
The Animals--House of the Rising Sun:
