The Usual Suspects
Original Air Date 11/09/2006

Sam and Dean find themselves in police custody with Dean accused of murder, but one of the detectives becomes convinced that there is a supernatural angle to the case.

Notes

Writer

Cathryn Humphris

Director

Mike Rohl

Guest Stars:

Linda Blair
Jason Gedrick (Peter Sheridan)
Keegan Connor Tracy (Karen Giles)

Filming Locations:

Point Grey School,
Granville Street at 41st

Completely Useless Trivia:

Anthony Giles' office is in room #302.

Their home address is
45 Upper Alder Heights Parkway, Baltimore, Maryland, 555-0101.

Tony's birthday is 07/02/1963.

The paragraph Diana is typing in her police report reads:
"Police responded to a 911 call from an office building adjacent to that of the crime scene. The call was received at 12:50AM. Officers entered the building and entered victim's office, which was unlocked. Victim was found near desk. (see attached measurements)"

Dean's worksheet of the dana shulps anagram is as follows:
dana shulps
dan shulpas
land pushas
supash land
push landas
plush danas

Review

For the first time this season, I LOVED the then/now recap!!! Despite my disappointment in the continued lack of music, the recap lists every alias the boys have ever used, getting faster and choppier as the seconds tick past. Beautifully edited, it reminds me yet again why I love this show so much. From the laundry list of fake names and a quick reminder of Dean's death in the Skin episode, we switch to "now", where one brother is chained to a table in the Baltimore PD interrogation room, and the other is surrounded by the SWAT team at the hotel. Thirty seconds into the episode and we already know we're in for a roller coaster ride of a show!

Playing the sympathetic yet dedicated police lieutenant Diana Ballard, Linda Blair is excellent in her role. Over the course of the episode she shows us a rainbow of emotions between the hard-edged cop, the frightened victim, the star-crossed lover and the skeptical interrogator. Very impressive, and perfect for a sweeps week episode. She starts with a nice little recap of Sam's life, trying to convince him to be a good boy and turn on his brother. I love how Sam seems so impressed with "the second largest ball of twine in the continental US". The fact that he has to specify the continental US makes me wonder just how many giant balls of twine there actually are out there, and what sort of weirdo spends all their time rolling twine. Then again, what sort of weirdo spends all their time writing about a fictitious television show? Okay, okay, we're not here to throw stones. She works hard to turn Sam against his brother, but Sam knows he and Dean are conniving and sly enough to get out of yet another tight spot. Much like the Skin episode, this one starts at the end and works it's way backwards to fill in the missing information. Sam explains his sterilized version of events leading up to Dean's capture, and we're treated to flashbacks that show the real story. First flashback is the director's cut scene that most people have already watched on the CW site. Dean and Sam sipping coffee and discussing the unusual death of Anthony Giles. Throat slit, no DNA, no prints, no security camera footage. Invisible killer? They'll get to the bottom of it. Beautiful X-Files line here when Dean calls Sam "Scully". Sam argues that Dean is Scully, but Dean says he's Mulder. Sam is the red headed woman. The look on Sam's face is priceless, he has no response to the insult and just sits there trying to find a comeback even though Dean is already halfway back to the car. Posing as insurance investigators, the two go to see Karen Giles, the widow. Sam does his puppy-dog-eyes-I-sympathize-with-you-but-need-the-information thing, but Dean pumps hard for information. Did her husband tell her anything unusual? Strange? Weird? Sam clears his throat to temper Deans questions, and glares at him until Karen turns back, at which point Sam pastes the sympathetic eyes back on until she looks away again. Very cute how that little expression shows us that his sympathy is just a tool to get the job done. Karen tells of her husband's nightmare. A pale woman at the foot of the bed with dark red eyes. I'm glad they had her comment on the odd choice of questions from the supposed investigators. I would think that most people would question the reasoning behind asking what the woman in the deceased's dream actually looked like. The boys get away with those kinds of questions far too often, and I'm glad they finally got called on it. Go Karen! On to Tony's office, they find "Dana Shulps" has been written all over the place. Sheets in the printer, plus finger-written on the glass desk. Another beautiful shot here when, shown from underneath, Sam breathes on the desk to bring out the writing. It appears for a second before the mist evaporates, highlighted clearly against Sam's dark clothing. A wonderful affect that was very much appreciated! Assuming it's a name, they search the file cabinets and the internet for records, but find no Shulps' listed anywhere. Sam thinks he can crack the password for Tony's computer, leaving Dean with nothing to do but sit back and relax. Like any ADHD sufferer, Dean can't sit quietly for more than 10 seconds. His antics are probably my favourite part of this episode. He starts by clicking his tongue. Not sure what song he was sounding out, but what a multi-talented musician! Tired of the tongue (who, Dean? lol) he moves on to trumpeting through the sinus cavities at which point Sam can no longer stand his brother's presence. Dean leaves to check in on Karen again, calling Sam his favourite nickname "sparky" on the way out. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd love to know if details like this are scripted, or directed, or if they come from Jensen. The tongue clicking, flashing the light at his brother on the way out, I can't imagine that those actions were all in the script.

Back to Sam in the interrogation room, the detective questions why the two opted to separate just in time for Karen to be killed. A piece of odd information here, the detective says that she heard the 911 call, and Karen was terrified. A second later we are shown the 911 call, and she sounds quite reasonable. A little breathless, and certainly scared, but I wouldn't say "terrified". Karen sees the ghostly woman in her house but isn't sure if it's an intruder or not. She calls the police and gives the address, but the phone goes dead before she can give any more details. To increase her fear, the printer starts spitting out sheets of paper covered with "dana shulps" from top to bottom, just like at her husband's office. The lights flicker and go dark, so she turns to the closet for a flashlight. When she turns back, the spectre is standing right behind her. Now I'd call her terrified!

Dean knocks on Karen's door but there's no answer. In true Winchester fashion, he opts to pick the lock instead of waiting for her to answer the door. Exploring the darkened house, he finds her in the bedroom, fresh blood surrounding her still-warm body. He notices her bruised wrists, and lifts her arm for a closer look just as the police find him. Caught standing over her with blood on his hands, there's not much hope for Dean Winchester.

The detectives discuss the boys. Diana laments that their stories are identical. With no murder weapon and no motive, all they have is circumstantial evidence. She reveals that her partner, Pete Sheridan, and Tony Giles were friends, and that makes him more motivated to find the person responsible. He strokes her chin to stay her worries, and we realize that these two are more than just partners. Their kiss confirms the suspicion. I can't help but wonder what thought is going through Jason Gedrick's head as he kisses Linda Blair. Most famous for her role as the head-spinning, projectile-vomiting possessed girl in The Exorcist, any thoughts he had would have to be related to pea soup or hordes of blackflies. I applaud his fortitude! Back in their respective rooms, Dean and Sam both work on the mystery of the words "dana shulps". They puzzle out the letters, thinking they might be an anagram. Sam is fortunate to have his case file in the room with him, he can write the letters down to sort out the combinations. Dean has the harder challenge of working it out in his head, but gets an assist by his public defender Jeff Krause who, when asked, recognizes a street name. Ashland. Poor Jeff, he seems so bewildered that Dean doesn't care about his own defense. When he tells Dean he could be facing the death penalty, Dean answers with "thanks for the law review, Matlock!" He then jots a quick note and asks the lawyer to give it to Sam. When he delivers it and asks to talk about Sam's case, Sam says "sure thing, Matlock.", proving that brothers really do think alike. The obscurely written note reads "Hilts- it's a street. Ashland. -McQueen". Meanwhile, poor Diana is trying to type up her case report but the screen fills with the words "dana shulps" over and over. She tries to escape the program, then reboot, but all to no effect. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the words disappear and her screen is back to normal, leaving her bewildered and questioning her eyesight. Before Sam and the lawyer can get into the case, Diana comes in to retrieve the lawyer for Dean who has decided to confess. All business, the cops have the room set up to record Dean's story. Through the blue-screen video POV, we look into Dean's eyes as he begins. "My name is Dean Winchester. I'm an Aquarius, I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky women." Trust Dean to take something as serious as a murder confession and turn it into a joke. He continues on to say he didn't kill anyone, that it was the work of a vengeful spirit. Spilling the whole story, he tells of the spectre and the words left behind. He explains that spirits tend to get words jumbled, like "redrum" (from The Shining) and although it sounds like a name, they think it's a street. Pete asks about the women in St. Louis that Dean is accused of killing. He smiles and tells of the shape-shifter that was responsible. This is too much for Pete to accept, and he yanks Dean up and out of the chair, slamming him painfully against the wall. Diana stops him from doing any worse, and the two of them leave to check on Sam. They find the room vacant, the window open and the note from Dean on the table. Diana recognizes the name Hilts as Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape. Knowing that Dean's confession was just a ruse to allow Sam time to escape, she retreats to the ladies room to get control of her frustrations. As soon as she enters, the lights begin to flicker. As she reaches for the water tap, the hot water turns on of it's own accord, followed by the taps on the other two sinks. As the steam covers the mirrors, letters begin to appear. Another excellent effect, we can hear the sound of fingers squeaking on the glass, but with no visible hand. Also, the letters appear in a random order, drawing more attention to Dean's comment about spirits getting words mixed up. Recognizing the words from Dean's confession, she wipes them from the mirror as if that would make the odd happenings stop. The glass shows a woman behind her, and she turns in shock to see the hideous spirit. The woman tries to speak, but can't make the sound come out. The only result is more blood trickling out of the gash across her throat. I have to say that I'm not terribly thrilled with the makeup job on the ghost. She looks a little too healthy to be dead, and seems to be enjoying herself far too much!

Shocked and afraid, Diana turns to Dean to help explain her experience. Without telling him what has been happening, she asks him to explain more about a vengeful spirit. He recommends she check Time-Life, Mysteries of the Unknown. She gets him talking, and he tells how they're born from violent death and they usually want revenge on the people that hurt them. Sounding as though she can't believe it's her voice asking these crazy questions, she asks if the spirits are capable of killing people. While speaking, she unconsciously raises her hands to her throat, as if imagining the spirit taking her life. Dean notices fresh bruises on her wrist, and asks where she got them. She doesn't know, but Dean does. The spirit has this effect on the victims, meaning that Diana has seen it. He points out that when people see the spirit, they die. He sends her to see Sam, telling her he can help, and how to find him. "Go to the first motel in the yellow pages and ask for Jim Rockford." These guys sure have a love of the classics, not only have they alluded to The Great Escape and now The Rockford Files, during his confession Dean referred to Pete as "Ponch", a throwback to the 80's tv show CHiPs.

Diana goes to see Sam, surprised at herself for believing Dean and for not arresting Sam. Choosing to trust, she tells Sam the whole story, including the fact that the spirit tried to speak but couldn't. Sam shows her a stack of police photos he's been downloading, and she picks the photo of the spirit. Claire Becker. She disappeared about 9 months ago. Claire was arrested for dealing narcotics, and it turns out that Pete and Diana used to work in the narcotics division. Sam finds that she was last seen entering 2911 Ashland Street and has never been found. They go to check out the building, a decrepit and dusty old warehouse. Sam goes upstairs to see what's behind the closed door, and Diana stays down to look around. The spirit of Claire appears to her again, reaching out her hands towards Diana, who calls for Sam. By the time Sam arrives, the spectre has disappeared. Going to where she first appeared by the window, they move a shelving rack to reveal the origin of the "dana shulps" word. Ashland Sup is printed on the glass, but the rest of the word "supplies" has been lost with age. Turning to see the reflection on the wall, we see the one blatant blooper in this episode. While the words are highlighted by the sun shining through the window, the lettering is black. When the reflection shows on the wall, it should be a bright patch of sunlight with the letters appearing as shadows. Instead, we see each letter drawn on the wall in brilliant golden sunshine, the exact opposite of how it should be. Pay a little more attention next time, okay guys? Sam pulls out his EMF detector, which lights up to full five-diode red when pointed at the wall. He smashes a few bricks in with a metal pole and sees that there is something inside. Using his superhuman "special child" powers, he smashes in the rest of the bricks using only his elbow. He must have some kind of extra "milk it does a body good" strength in that arm! Too bad his other arm didn't get the same genes, or it wouldn't be in a cast. They pull the canvas covered corpse out of the hole, and as they expected, it's the body of Claire Becker. They note her bound wrists, which explains the bruising to her victims, and Diana notices a familiar necklace. She tells Sam that the necklace was custom made, and yet it's an exact match to the one she herself wears; a gift from Pete. Sam realizes that Claire isn't a vengeful spirit, instead she's a death omen. She wants people to know who her killer is, and so she tries to warn them of their own impending deaths. Diana puts 2+2 together and remembers that when she worked narcotics there was a problem with some heroin going missing. Since Claire was a dealer, it makes sense that Pete would need her to fence the drugs for him.

Pete has taken it upon himself to transfer Dean, who has been told he's being extradited to St. Louis. Refusing to answer any of Dean's questions, he drives in silence into a remote wooded area. Sam and Diana are working to find them, realizing that something is terribly wrong, but will they be in time? Pete stops the truck and pulls Dean out of back, explaining that he's not going to make it to St. Louis. He's going to be shot and killed while trying to escape. Dean, weaponless and still chained hand and foot, shows us a rare glimpse of fear. When he's fighting all manner of supernatural creatures, he's secure in his abilities, fearless and cocky. Here, however, he's looking down the barrel of a gun held by a highly trained and experienced policeman. He can't run because of the leg irons, and he wouldn't be able to get to his feet to attack before he was fired upon. His choice is limited to talking his way out, and the fact that he's resorting to murder shows that Pete is obviously too desperate to be talked down. Just in time, Sam and Diana arrive, having traced the locator in the vehicle's radio. Pete asks for Diana's trust, telling her that killing Dean is the perfect solution. Claire, Tony and Karen all had to die because they would have turned him in. Dean has such a colourful record that no one would question that he's the killer. Diana feigns agreement, but when Pete turns his attention back to Dean she shoots him in the leg, dropping him like a stone. Dean takes the opportunity to roll to safety; a whole foot and a half away. Pete is down, but not out. When Diana walks closer, he tackles her to the ground, taking her gun and using it to hold off Sam. He aims the gun squarely at Diana, proving with his actions that the "I love you" he gave her a scant few seconds ago was a complete lie. Poised and ready to kill, he's stopped by a sound behind him. He turns to see the figure of Claire standing by the truck, a look of satisfaction on her bloody face, pleased that she's able to deliver her death omen to him, her murderer. As he stands looking at her in shock, the sound of a gunshot echoes through the darkness and a bullet blows a hole through his chest. Diana has taken the opportunity to find his discarded gun and use it to stop him. Permanently.

Daylight arrives to find Diana still wondering what to do. She tells the boys that there's a good chance she can get their cases dismissed, but the charges in St. Louis are out of her control. The only solution is if they escape custody here, now. She'd rather have them out fighting things that go bump in the night, now that she knows that what they fight is real. Dean asks about his car. She tells him it's in the impound lot on Robertson St, but there's no way for him to get it. Sam tells her not to worry, they'll improvise, but we know the truth. No way will Dean leave town without that car. As they walk down the tiny backwoods road, Dean asks Sam if he thinks Diana looks familiar. Sam says no, so Dean asks if he's hungry: for some reason he feels like having some pea soup. What a great closing line! Although I think it could've been handled more subtly, it was a cute little nod to The Exorcist and Linda Blair's pea soup vomit scene. With the possible exception of the shower scene in Psycho, Linda Blair projectile vomiting is probably the most famous and memorable scene ever shown in the history of feature films.

All in all I'd have to say this episode was excellent, however I'm a little surprised that for a sweeps week episode there wasn't more evil involved. Although the death omen spirit was certainly unusual, the culprit was a plain old ordinary human. I would have expected a great and mysterious creature brought to life with a lot of expensive CGFX. I'm surprised they went so low-key. On the upside, the writing was excellent and the interpersonal relationships were rich and enjoyable. Well, most of them, anyway. The few seconds of romance between Diana and Pete were almost painful to watch. As soon as he touched her chin I wanted to swat his hand away. The action felt wrong and made me leap to the conclusion that he was the guilty party. I know what you're thinking. Of course I was right, he was the guilty party, but that's beside the point. They're supposed to keep us guessing until the last possible second, and this little scene gave it away too early. Her facial expression was nice right before she kissed him, though. It was a mix of "now is not the time" and "he's my boyfriend, I'm glad he's around". I appreciated that little hint of conflict in her eyes before she submitted. As I said earlier, I was very impressed with Linda Blair's acting in this episode. It's the only thing I've ever seen her in besides The Exorcist, and it's nice to see that she's not still defined by her childhood role.

The Usual Suspects Original Air Date 11/09/2006