Party On, Garth (S7E18)

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode was recorded prior to the tragic 2025 fires in LA. There is brief commentary regarding fire safety (or lack thereof).

Berly and LA recap the season seven Supernatural episode, Party On, Garth. Over drinks, they'll discuss lore, gore, and what they adore about the Winchesters and their adventures. Now, let's get tipsy!  CW/TW for violent and lewd commentary; listeners beware! 🔞

Summary: In the podcast episode titled "Party On, Garth," the hosts discuss the 18th episode of "Supernatural" season seven. The episode centers on a series of mysterious deaths linked to a Japanese spirit, the shoju, which only appears to those who are drunk. Garth, a humorous and unconventional hunter, leads the investigation, using his wit and a sock puppet to extract information from a traumatized girl. The team discovers that the shoju is tied to a bottle of sake left by a deceased brewmaster. They ultimately defeat the spirit with a samurai sword blessed with a Japanese ritual. The hosts appreciate the episode's humor, creative storytelling, and nods to Japanese horror.

Resources:

• https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Party_On,_Garth
• https://www.clayvermulmfiction.com/post/the-shojo-japanese-spirit-of-spirits
• https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-japanese-horror-movies-of-all-time/

Transcript

Berly: 0:01

Ellie, welcome to denim wrapped nightmares, Tipsy Exchange Podcast where we explore the supernatural series, episode by episode,

LA: 0:10

over drinks, we'll discuss the lore the gore and what we adore about the Winchesters and their adventures.

Berly: 0:17

I'm Burleigh, and I'm a new fan of the series. I'm

LA: 0:21

LA, and I'm here along for the ride. Now let's get Tipsy. Hello, LA, hello Burly. On our last episode, it was titled The your support, the born again identity Lucifer was driving Sam to the breaking point, and he ended up in a mental hospital. Dean was desperate to save him, and called every hunter he knew for help. There was a familiar face that showed up in the name of a healer. You

Berly: 0:53

could say it was angelic, it was and

LA: 0:59

it was Cass,

Berly: 1:02

and we saw Cass's ass. Yay. Yeah.

LA: 1:04

Nice. A nice view.

Berly: 1:06

Not as, not as good of a view as Daphne got, apparently, but we'll take it true. Well, today's episode is titled party on Garth. It's the 18th episode of season seven, and originally aired on March 30, 2012 we open up, there's like four, four teenagers who are camping out, and they're telling spooky ghost stories and talking about Jenny green tree, and that she was, I think she was homeless, and she froze to death outside, and is an evil spirit haunting the forest, you Know, trying to scare the girlfriends that are up there. They didn't seem too impressed with the story. They were kind of like, oh, but also, because the guys were doing that annoying like thing, right? If your story is not scary enough on its own, why are you like jabbing people, right? I don't like that. I don't like it when people jab at me like that. So me either. Well, Trevor the ginger comes stumbling out around the corner, oh yeah, and is wasted for who knows what reason. And they're just like, Trevor, what the fuck did you drive out here? So I guess Trevor wasn't invited and was just crashing the party, right? He seemed like he was the older brother too. And so the younger brother, what was his name? Ray, is trying to talk to Trevor, and she's like, Dude, you cannot get drunk and drive like that. Like, good, good watching out for your brother. That was really dumb, especially to just crash a camping trip. Trevor starts freaking out. He's like, did you hear that we have to run? And he takes off running down the road. Everybody's just like, What the hell was that? One of the girls was like, What is he on? Like, that's not drunk behavior. What? What's happening? Ray tells everybody, Hey, just calm down. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go check on him. And hears him, like, scream. So he kind of goes jogging down the road to find him, and poor Trevor. Oh, my goodness, he's had, it's like his whole his stomach was punched through, I think, right, right.

LA: 3:01

I liked the added touch of the fluff from his down, still floating in the air, his puffy

Berly: 3:07

vest. Yeah, you know, by the end of the episode, we know the monster is invisible. I'm like, was it still standing there? You know? Why didn't it go ahead and take out the other brother? Then that's true. Why didn't it be like, No, oh, oh, you gotta be drunk. Well, you have to be drunk to see it, not be drunk to get killed by it. That's true. That's true like inefficient, inefficient ghost here, or demon or

LA: 3:32

whatever, smarter, not harder, right?

Berly: 3:34

Come on, shojo, he was right there. He could have gotten two with one stone. Come on, I don't get it. Good point. For whatever reason, the invisible monster decides, like you need to go mourn this death first, go be really sad and depressed, and then I'll come get you. I'll I'll hit you up later. Then we get supernatural. We cut to good old Garth, oh, pulling up to a diner. So we kind of got our wish of getting to see Garth work a case by himself. So I was thrilled with that

LA: 4:02

true. And I loved his intro music. It was so

Berly: 4:08

funny. It was perfect. It was perfect. And I love that he drives an El Camino, yeah, oh, yeah, because the only other El Camino that we've seen belonged to a very different Hunter. Do you remember who? Who else drove an El Camino? Who? Sterling, K browns, Gordon?

LA: 4:26

Oh, really? Oh, I don't remember that at all. Oh, wow, yeah, that's two Alfred opposite ends of the hunter spectrum, right?

Berly: 4:34

I thought that was hilarious. I was like, okay for them to have an El Camino. That feels like a purposeful decision. It probably wasn't, but it felt like to me that it was a very purposeful decision, that we had this very serious, dark Hunter, very intense Hunter, who drove the El Camino, and now we've got Garth, who is the complete opposite, oh yeah, of Gordon. I love it. Though I thought that was cute. And yeah, him walking up to the girls, and. Demanding they talk to the diner and then flashing the badge and be like, I deserve some respect. I love DJ qual, letting his accent come out. Yeah, in this role, I love it. So the girls tell Garth, these are the two girls that were on the camping trip. They tell him everything that happened, and they mention Jenny green sheet. So Garth is like, on it, and they told her she's buried in the local cemetery. So he goes and, you know, digs it up and burns the bones, and he does the full matchbook and throws that on there, and then he's walking away. We've got the slow motion walking away like they do in action movies, with the fire going crazy behind him, which was a wonderful shot. But then I'm going, Oh, my God, how dangerous you're just leaving it burning like that. Like that could get out of hand if that's not contained, like, I know it's in a hole, but, oh my, that's not that's not safe, that's not safe. Garth, but we got this wonderful opening to it. But then unfortunately, we see that Ray, like I said, morning, he's also now gotten drunk, and the showed you comes for him. He's driven out to the location where his brother had died. He did not want to talk to anybody. He just wanted to be out there buy himself drunk and be sad about his brother. But unfortunately, the showed you decided now, now this time I'm gonna get you. I'll let you go that first time because I was too tired, because I had punched a hole through your through your brother already, but now I've rested up. I took a little nap. I'm feeling real strong, so I'm actually going to pull you up into this tree before I gut punch you. Yeah, until, until you die. It was pretty bad. Yeah, yeah. Doctor, like, did a really good job, like shaking and gyrating. There was a lot of blood coming down his legs. So we didn't actually see the gut punch happen with either of these guys. With Trevor, we just saw the aftermath with Ray. We saw it happen, but we still can't see the monster. We just see the blood coming down his legs and then him just like, stuck up in the tree. So I'm like, did she hang him on a branch? Like, what? What did she do that she left him because his body was left just hanging there, yeah. And then they were like, animal attacks. I'm like, what animal takes the body and hangs it from the tree? Yeah, I don't

LA: 7:11

know. That's like, what was the other what was the other one? Where they were finding some it was like a monster in the trees. Ranger Rick,

Berly: 7:19

yeah. Ranger Rick, yeah, he got taken from behind. He did. He did. It was fast, quick and dirty. Garth is on the phone making plans for his evening with his special lady.

LA: 7:33

I know he's like, I did a job today. Got it done quick. I'm out. Yeah, he was

Berly: 7:37

telling her to warm up the hot tub for him. So then I feel bad for him whenever Sam and Dean come and stay with in the hotel room with him, because I'm like, Oh, he had to kick out his girlfriend, yeah, he had to send her on her way. He didn't get to enjoy that hot tub with his lady friend. That sucks, but He's great. He's like, I took care of this in record time I'm good to go. He stops to pick up some food. And then here's a police report about race death. He's just, like, completely flabbergasted because he Garth, the monster

LA: 8:08

I loved. I chuckled when he said that you've been scarfed Garth, yeah.

Berly: 8:15

Like, there aren't very many names that I feel like you can successfully use as a verb like that, true, but this one worked. This one worked. Yeah, I liked it. We cut to Dean and Sam, and they have just, or Dean specifically, has just gotten off the phone with Meg, who is staying behind to take care of Castiel, right? And he hangs up the phone. Is like, What a bitch.

LA: 8:40

Very good. I

Berly: 8:43

was like, okay, great, thanks, Meg. Call, call us if he wakes up or anything. Okay, click, bitch. I was like,

LA: 8:49

damn. Like, what did she say? She say, My

Berly: 8:53

God, it sounds like she was just giving you a status report, right? Goodness. I mean, I'm sure she was being Meg about it, but the fact that she was giving you a report at all was like, not Meg, like, you know what I mean, right? Poor Sam, you know, he brought up the ring, which I thought would just was a nice touch, because that was a Japanese horror movie originally, yeah, and he said he's feeling guilty, like he's just passed it on to somebody else. Well, then Dean's phone rings again, and it's Garth Fitzgerald, the fourth Dean. Is like, what? Who? What? He's like, we hunted together. You owe me one, and I'm calling it in. What do you say? Like, I'm ready to cash in on that tip bra or something like that. Yeah. I loved it. I wonder, I do wonder, if DJ quals got to improv any of his lines, because it just the personality that was put into the role was perfect, yeah, credit to the writer if it was in the script, but it just, it just seemed so organic and authentic coming from DJ Qualls, I loved it. Dean agrees that they'll come help and tell Sam that, uh, not to worry that Garth will grow on him. I. Did you just snort? Or was that the dog it

LA: 10:03

was, I breathed in a little and it was just snoring.

Berly: 10:09

Yummy. Yeah, Sam and Dean go to meet Garth directly at the morgue where the second body is at, and Garth is in a soldier's uniform and is claiming to be Trevor and Ray's cousin who's going to be getting deployed and unable to attend the funeral, so he wanted to come by and say goodbye. Sam and Dean are, of course, just in their suits, pretending to be federal agents. Again, this mortician just hands them the file and goes into his office to talk to his wife. He's not in the scene very much. Sam and Dean are like, what a suit's too good for you or something. And Garth was like, I look good in a uniform. I was just like, Thank you, Garth, because Sam and Dean are too reliant on the suits now these days. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Thank you for bringing in a costume, Garth, you are appreciated. Mm, hmm. You thought outside the box.

LA: 10:59

I hope, I hope they will be influenced by you, right? They're looking

Berly: 11:03

over everything. Garth is filling them in on the story, telling them that he's already gone and salt and burned. Jenny green, whatever her name is, so that can't be what's going on. And originally, Dean's thinking, you know, maybe she's tied to another object. It's not necessarily the body, but Garth says that he's done a sweep and there is no EMF. But then dean pulls out his EMF, and it goes off, and Garth's just like a shit. I guess my EMF detectors broke again. I thought it was funny, he said again, Sam has gone to the coroner's or mortician's computer, has started to do some Googling away, and asks the guys if either of them have heard of thigh slapper. And Dean is very aggressive about this micro brew. He's like, Oh, douche bags. Douche bag beer apparently ends up being delicious, though, so he takes it all back later on in the episode. But Sam points out that these kids like they're they this is where their dad is so we should probably go there interview more family members, see if we can't figure it out.

LA: 12:05

I totally thought when they got there and the sister Marie was the one that, like, greeted them and everything, I was like, oh, it's her. She did something. I was wrong.

Berly: 12:13

I thought it was going to be the janitor. Oh, yeah. I mean, they did. He did end up being important, but they just kind of emphasized that he was getting special treatment, right? It's like, okay, it's not going to be the angry dude who's yelling because they're making it too big of a thing. And then she was like, he's really a nice guy. He's really a nice guy. And so I was like, I don't know. Maybe it is him, yeah, I don't know. I think it's a janitor. Why is he there? They could have had him yelling about something else. None of the above. No. Marie the sister introduces them to Jim, the dad. And there's also the CEO and partner to the microbury Brandy Baxter. And then Dale was the brew master, right? So the creative genius behind everything the other guys just kind of run the business aspect was kind of where I got, oh, yeah, that seems right. Gist of things that are going on. Yeah, right. So Jim and Randy are in their office, and Randy, the AX man, is yelling at this janitor like that. This is his third strike. And then he gets told, that's it. You're on the graveyard shift. Don't, don't fuck this up. I'm giving you another try. Get out of here. It seemed like it was important. We were able to hear too much of the conversation and all of this kind of stuff. So it seemed like it was going to be important. For some reason, I've forgotten about it by the end of the episode, whenever it came back up. That's being important, you know. But in the moment, I was like, Okay, I'm going to remember this. Sam and Garth go in to talk with Jim and Randy, while Dean takes a tour of the micro brewery with Marie, and is casually talking with her, getting more information. Jim is just too upset which they're his kids, so it's understandable that he's kind of having issues talking about it. I mean, yeah, yeah. Can you imagine

LA: 13:55

losing two kids within a matter of, like, the same week, probably, like, for days, yeah, it

Berly: 13:59

was days apart. And then we find out that Dale, the brew master, had also passed away just a couple of weeks prior. So Randy tells Jim, get out of here. Go home. I'll answer all of their questions. We're good. Randy tells Sam and Garth that they are actually about to sell the business that they would be celebrating under completely different circumstances, obviously. Well, Dean is talking to Marie and finds out that Dale's widow is suing the micro brewery. So there's some drama. It's getting a little messy. We cut to Jim's home, and he has a daughter. Well, this daughter has been a little sneaky snake. You know what? It wasn't her fault. I was about to say, Yeah, Jim's wife. Jim's wife, which, I don't know why Tess was the great. Was the granddaughter. I was thinking that Lillian was the was the granddaughter or the wife? Oh, yeah, but no, Lillian. Lillian is the daughter. So the daughter is at Jim's house with her granddaughter. Daughter, and Lillian is also very upset, so she has poured a glass of OJ for her daughter, Tess, and then makes a nice little screwdriver for herself. I

LA: 15:09

mean, the family's been through a lot, you know? I mean, maybe be a little more careful. I was

Berly: 15:13

about to say now, who's little irresponsible to take the beverages that look exactly the same and go and set both of them down right in front of your daughter. Yeah, and the one closest to your daughter is the screwdriver. Like she she was, she wasn't paying attention, but when she was walking to the table, in her defense, that's when her dad came in. Right is right when she was walking to the table. So she just set the glasses down quickly to turn around and go greet him and say hello. And while she's talking to her dad, Tess reaches for what she thinks is her OJ, and takes a big old drink, and then she makes a face and is like, oh, because she realizes she's had a grown up drink. Well, Tess must have drink that on an empty stomach, because it hits her system real quick.

LA: 15:55

I was like, damn, yeah.

Berly: 15:58

I mean, if it was on a empty stomach. They were getting ready to have dinner, you know, like it could have. It totally could have. She was, she's a small little thing. Jim comes and sits down with her to see what she's drawing, and she's just giggling away. Tess is feeling great right now, probably giggling that she did something naughty too, that she knows she wasn't supposed to do. And Lillian has completely forgotten about her screwdriver, and is in the kitchen getting things ready for dinner, when Tess looks over and sees something with long black hair, which we kind of saw the monster a little bit whenever Ray was in the forest. We didn't see it kill him. We didn't see it murder him, but we saw it like moving around between the trees. Yeah, from afar, it looked like the monster from the grudge, am I right? Yeah, I didn't Google it. I'm just going off of memory here, which is another Japanese horror film, really liking all the little nods to Japanese horror within today's episode. Yeah, she's got the makeup on the dress on. The actress did really well emulating the monster from the movies. So she's in the kitchen, stalking behind Lillian and Tess is kind of like, What the fuck is that? So she just gets up in the middle of her grandfather's sentence and goes walking into the kitchen looking very confused about why this random woman is in their kitchen behind her mom. She screams, and the mom turns around. I think the mom was able to see the shoju, wasn't she? Yeah, I think so it seemed like it, she reacted like she could, so I'm guessing that was, like, probably screwdriver number three that she had poured, right?

LA: 17:30

Those reflexes just weren't

Berly: 17:32

working too, yeah, yeah. So, so, because, well, if she was able to see it, then she had to have been intoxicated, right? Like, otherwise it would have just been invisible, yeah, yeah. But whenever the daughter screamed, whenever little Tess screamed, and the mom turned around, she reacted as if she saw what the daughter screamed about,

LA: 17:47

yeah, because she, like, looked like she, like, was about to, like, run away. Yeah. She tried, yeah, she

Berly: 17:51

tried. But we know this showed you, like, taking them from behind. Oh, yeah, just like Ranger Rick man, in a very rough way. It just goes, I keep calling it a gut punch. I don't know what else to call, but it's like, literally penetrating through her. I thought this was cool special effects.

LA: 18:06

I know where you could, like, see her fingers, yeah, I'm like, how did

Berly: 18:10

they do that? There's the blood, because her arms were out to the side and it was on her face and then panned down to her stomach. I mean, I guess there could have been a cut there somewhere, but it was done really well, yeah, and you could, you could see the monster, like, over her shoulder. And it was, it was a really cool shot. I enjoyed it. Poor Lillian and poor Jim. Yeah, is standing here watching this. So imagine being Jim. He can't see the shojo. He has no idea what's happening. He just literally saw nothing, invisibility punch through his daughter's midsection. He was already having a hard time. Yeah, this

LA: 18:49

is his third kid to go, and then his granddaughter witnessed all of this too. They

Berly: 18:53

all witnessed it. It was rough. Sam Dean and Garth are all at Garth's motel room with a hot tub inside, and Sam and Dean come in being like, kind of snobby, then I'm just like, come, come on, some of the hotel rooms you all have stayed in, you, you have no place to judge true, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna draw the line with him having a hot tub in his hotel room. That's, that's where you think it's too much. I mean, this was a massive suite, yeah, like, it was like, the honeymoon suite at some motel or something. Garth was just like, Have you guys ever sucked in a hot tub after a hard job? You should try it. Yeah. Why are you all being so judging better than the what are the magic fingers?

LA: 19:31

Yeah? Yeah. Better than that.

Berly: 19:33

Okay, and we know you loved that, Dean, so maybe you should upgrade to a hot tub. Yeah. Seems like Garth knows exactly what he's talking about in in a lot of these situations, they're trying to figure out what possible creature could this be. Sam is doing some more research on the brewery and confirms that Dale was the brew master as well as a partner. And this is when Dean is drinking the beers, and it's just like, Oh, damn, this is good. And passes them out to everybody. Garth proceeds to chug. The entire bottle. He

LA: 20:01

was like, taking the the tiniest little sips too to like, at first, I was like, okay, is he gonna stop? Or you really just need to take this thing all the way through? He was

Berly: 20:11

like, I want to get as gassy as possible. Yeah, drink as much air as possible while I'm drinking this beer, so that I can burp and laugh and giggle just have a wonderful little time. Garth gets drunk pretty much as quickly as tested, you know, like

LA: 20:26

he's, yeah, some lightweights, you know. Sam

Berly: 20:30

said, Garth, you drunk? He was like, Yeah, I just drank a whole beer. So Duh, of course, I am. And he admits, you know, he doesn't. He doesn't normally drink beer because it messes with his depth perception. And then he said, especially when he skinny dips, and I'm like,

LA: 20:45

what? Yeah,

Berly: 20:47

what are you idiot? I want to hear these stories about where your death perception was an issue while you were skinny dipping. What were you running into? Who were you running into? Were you running to jump into something and missed because your death perception was off, you know, like, what's the story behind that? Garth is fiddling. I think this is when he's fiddling with his EMF detector and he's messing with deans. Also, both of them are going off a little bit. Yeah, I didn't make anything of at the time. I just thought it was because he was fiddling around with it. But it does become important later in the episode, Sam's continuing to research, and he points out that Dale had actually left the company two weeks before he passed. They're like, okay, so we know they're selling. What if Dale didn't want to sell? What if he didn't leave? What if he was pushed out? And that's when Dean said, Marie did tell me that his widow is suing, so there's got to be a reason behind that. So now they're like, Okay, we've got more people to interview. Garth's handy dandy police scanner goes off again and they hear about what had just happened till the end. So they decided to split up. And I love it. They were like, okay, so we need to go to Jim's house, talk to that family, find out what happened out there. And Sam goes, I'm gonna go talk to the widow. Dean just looks at him like, fuck you. You know he doesn't, he doesn't say it, but he just looks at him like he is not happy. And Sam just smiles. I thought it was cute. Thought it was a nice little touch.

LA: 22:12

I mean, he already had to, like, question the one guy with with Garth,

Berly: 22:16

it's Dean's turn, right? Dean and Garth go to Jim's house to interview Jim. I'm guessing that was his wife that was with her and Tess about what happened to her mom. And Sam goes to talk to the widow. So I'm gonna skip to the widow, because I thought she was fabulous. Yeah, I liked her. I was like, Okay, this is a no nonsense queen right here. So she explains that their hypothesis is correct, that Dale did not want to sell, that that micro brewery was his baby. He told her he got them a present to show them that He forgives them, that it's going to what do something in return. Hang

LA: 22:54

on, I wrote it down. What you took will be taken. Well, yeah, go ahead. We don't know that. Okay. I like how they went and found, like, a Japanese chef to translate. I did too.

Berly: 23:04

I thought that was a nice touch. And I loved that the Japanese chef was just like, I mean, okay, you're gonna keep paying me. I'm gonna go along with this stuff. But, like, I don't want to touch your box, like, take us back, right? All that stuff.

LA: 23:15

But, yeah, he said that. It said what you took will be taken from you, like, eye for an eye, and that the it's from the shoju Alcohol spirit,

Berly: 23:25

which we're not there yet. The wife, the widow, is saying something, something around those same nights, but the way she's wording it could be interpreted to be like a kind thing. And that obviously was her interpretation of it. Because she was saying that she was livid. She was like, I was furious. And she was like, but you know, good old Dale, you know what? He turned around and did? He went and got them a gift, you know? He said that he wanted to make them feel the same way he felt.

LA: 23:49

Oh, yeah, sorry I didn't write that down, though I was in the wrong spot. Well, we're gonna

Berly: 23:53

get there, yeah, but it was something along those lines. I loved her performance. I just, I liked this actress. I liked that she wasn't like a sobbing wreck. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I just feel like we see that a lot whenever there's a widow being depicted. So it was just a nice change of pace to see a widow depicted differently. Well,

LA: 24:14

and didn't he? He did? He kill himself?

Berly: 24:18

Yes, yeah, they do say that he took his own

LA: 24:21

life. I think she's just probably pissed more than anything about all of a whole situation.

Berly: 24:25

Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. And I just, yeah, I thought it was a nice touch. Yeah. Well, back at Jim's house, Garth and Dean are chit chatting. They've already interviewed everybody. Garth is saying that he's run both the EMFs and there's nothing in the house, and he gives Dean back his EMF. He's like, here, I figured you'd want this back. And Dean's like, what? And he's like, Well, I borrowed it in case mine was broken and not working again, I borrowed yours. It seems like Garth is being aloof or something like that. But I think he was investigating. I think he noticed that something was going up with Dean's EMF detector, and he took deans to see if something was going on with deans. Oh, you know what I mean for sure. That's what he was doing. Yeah, he was playing it off. Like, Oh, I thought something was wrong with mine or whatever. But it's like, no, I think he knew, because we kind of find out later on that he he's clocked all these different things throughout the episode. So they're talking about how they haven't gotten any information here that's going to be useful to them. They still don't know what this monster was that no one could see anything. Think it was dean who said that he felt like Tess wasn't telling them everything. And Garth was like, All right, I'll take a run at her.

LA: 25:32

Oh, yeah. Didn't he say? He said, My Lady has two, two kids, or something like that. Yeah,

Berly: 25:36

my lady has twins, my special lady. Whenever he said that, I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of like, ah, because whenever he was talking to his special lady on the phone earlier in the episode, I totally thought it was going to end up being Becky. Oh well, just the way that he was like, No, I hurt you more. I was like, oh my god, it's Becky. Yeah, that

LA: 25:57

would have, I mean, that would have been something, it's Becky,

Berly: 26:01

but Becky didn't have twins, so I don't think it's Becky which is probably in Garth's best interest. So yeah, that's okay. Well, they go in and they ask Jim and his wife if they can please talk to Tess alone. And they they allow it. They leave the room. Garth sits down on the coffee table in front of Tess and Dean sits in a chair that's kind of off to the corner a little bit. And I love how the director framed this scene, because Garth asks Tess if she's seen anything, if she'll talk to them about anything. And she shakes her head no. Then Garth pulls out a sock puppet, and he says it's Mr. Fizzles, and he's using a voice and like she actually ends up telling him that the monster had claws. And then Garth is pressing Mr. Fizzles knows when someone's lying, and so the little girl admits that she had the adult drink, that she drank the adult drink, and please don't send me to jail, Mr. Mr. Fizzles. And during this whole conversation, Dean keeps kind of interjecting, like it's clear that he doesn't think this is working, that this is going to do the job. And so at the end, Garth, like, looks over, and he does, like the little head nod with the sock puppet. But I loved how this was framed, how it was blocked, because once he went to the sock puppet. Everything was framed and blocked as if the conversation that was going on between Garth Tess and Dean was going on between Mr. Fizzles, Tess and Dean, like you did not see DJ quall's face, yeah until the very end, whenever he looked over his shoulder at Dean, it was all close ups on Mr. Fizzles, close ups on Tess close ups on Dean. Yeah. And I loved that. I thought that was hilarious.

LA: 27:49

I have to say I was kind of with Dean when he pulled out that sock puppet, at first, I was like, okay, come on, same.

Berly: 27:55

But he was right now that little girl, she wanted to tell Mr. Fizzles everything, yeah, well, she didn't want to, but she couldn't resist telling Mr. Fizzles everything. So they've got some more information here, but they're still going, okay, so it's got claws, it's invisible. Dean and Garth are in the car about to head out, and they're trying to figure out what's the common thread here. And Dean finally lands on adult drink. You know, we know Trevor was wasted. Ray was out in the middle of nowhere. He was he was drunk. No little girl was drunk. So it's invisible. Unless you're drunk, then you can see it. This is going to be a tough monster for us to kill, but all right, I guess we need to go, go get drinking. And Dane decides to go ahead and get a head start. Pulls out the flask. Garth goes ahead and asks, and what's going on with that? It's all rusty and busty. What's going on with this flask? And Dean says, It's Bobby's. And we see a montage of things that Garth has clocked throughout the episode, particularly surrounding the EMF detectors, and when they were going off, was almost always around that flask. So Garth asks, is there a chance that Bobby is still around? Dean is just like, no, like, we're not talking about this. He dismisses Garth pretty quickly. Here they go meet Sam at the brewery. Dean and Sam break in to go into the office to see if they can find this mystery gift that was sent by Dale to Jim and Randy. Sam fortunately, clocked the very unique box that LA was talking about earlier. He clocked it whenever they were interviewing Randy earlier, so he knew exactly where it was. He's looking at the box. They're opening the box, and they see that it's a bottle of Saki. They also noticed the Saki bottle has been opened. So somebody has been partaking of the Saki Sam hacks the computer. There happens to be a camera in the room. I love the team. Was like, I love paranoid people. I know it's like, they do come in handy when you least expect it. You know, Sam said the first death was four days ago. So they go back four. Days ago, and they see Randy and Jim in the in the office having their meeting. And then we see Lee. We see the janitor again. So that's whenever. That's whenever I started to think, oh, it's the janitor. They made it. They made a big deal about him in the beginning. And now, like, what was the point of him being on the like, coming through the office just now on the security thing, it's the janitor. It's the janitor. He has something to do with it. She has something to do with it, but just not what I thought. Right? We see Trevor, sure enough, come in open the Psaki, which, you know what smart on him. I will say this because it's the only bottle that wasn't displayed where he would see that someone had been drinking from it. Oh, true, yeah. You know, it's stored in that box. So good on him that he was like, Oh, let me go do this. So we see him go in, open the box, open the Saki, and pound a good chunk of that Saki. And then he puts it back in the box and puts it back on the shelf and leaves. So they're just like, Okay, there's nothing. Hey, there's nothing here that's going to help us. And then dean remembers his little epiphany that he had in the car, I think we have to get loaded in order to see the full picture here. So luckily, since they're at this brewery and this CEO has all this liquor on his shelves behind him, for whatever reason, they have plenty of options to just kind of dive right in. Man,

LA: 31:19

they did. They drank

Berly: 31:20

a lot, yeah, yeah. Sam was like, Can you even get drunk anymore? Isn't it like taking a vitamin for you now, Dean. But Dean found something that apparently was going to do the trick, because he took a whiff of it. I was like, whoo. And then where he took a drink of it, he was like, Yep, this is gonna this is what's gonna work for me. They didn't overplay the word drunken. Silly bit, yeah, I thought that they played it really well. The conversation was cute. Whenever they got caught, whenever brandy came busted in, and was like, Hey, What are y'all doing here? And Dean was like, oh, turn it off. Turn it off. It was really it was cute. It was cute. I liked it. I was worried. Whenever they started drinking. I was like, oh, man, are y'all gonna be like, goofy, silly, like Garth was goofy, silly, but it fits Garth's character. You know, I was worried that Sam and Dean were going to do that. That doesn't fit their character, in my opinion.

LA: 32:06

Yeah, no, no, I see what you're saying. I get it. I agree. I agree. I was happy they

Berly: 32:10

didn't go over the top with that. It was just right, yeah, but yeah. Randy comes in now, fortunately, they had gotten loaded enough to where they saw the soju, and so they're just like, okay, yeah, Trevor came in here and released this entity. So we got to find out what this is. And that's whenever Garth comes in behind them and tazes Randy. I thought he had stabbed him at first. I thought it was the showed you. Oh, yeah. I thought it was the monster,

LA: 32:38

yeah. Well, I did too. But then when it showed him, and I didn't see that he had the taser, I just saw him jump over. I was like, damn, Garth, but then it was just the taser. So I was

Berly: 32:48

like, Oh okay, yeah, well, I guess I didn't think it was the showed you. I thought it was gonna be the showed you, or the janitor. I was like, Oh yeah, janitor is gonna be behind her, controlling it or something. But no, we didn't know it was a show Joe, yet. We just knew it was the ghost monster thing. We I don't, I don't know. I don't know what I was calling it in my brain at the time. I know it's a very important point that needs to be made, but I just can't remember. So we're gonna move on. They take Randy back to the motel, and Dean and Sam have stolen the box Garth has tossed Randy into the hot tub and has cuffed him to the faucet. And he was saying, like, Oh, he's heavier than he looks, so I'm like, hey, if he's heavier than he looks, then dump him on the bed like that would have been even more work to lift him and put him in the hot tub, because it didn't look like he was just dumped in there, like he was sitting there comfortably. Yeah, Garth took care. But I guess where with the bed? It didn't look like there was anywhere over by the bed to handcuff anything. So I guess that's why he picked that spot. Yeah? And he was like, out on the back patio doing tai chi. I know whatever. Sam and Dean came walking in. He's,

LA: 33:57

he's so care, you know, care of his stress, yeah.

Berly: 34:01

So this tells me they loaded Randy into Garth's El Camino, and then they all left. How did Sam and Dean get back to the motel? Because they don't drink and drive. Oh, yes, they took a cab like so Garth loaded Randy into his car and took him to the motel by himself, because Sam and Dean come in much later, and since it was an El Camino, I guess that they were too good to sit in the back. We're judging you for your motel, and we're judging you for your ride anyway. So they get into the motel. No, no, no. I made up a whole story for no reason. They took their car, they got a ride to the Japanese restaurant first. That's why they were so split up right in time. So Garth took Randy by himself to the motel room, and Sam and Dean took a cab to the Japanese restaurant first, and that's where they met your Japanese chef that you liked, right? And he told them that the. Writing said that it contained a shojo, which was an alcohol spirit. And they are not known for being friendly, and I love whenever he got to that part on the box, he was just like, are you superstitious? And they were like, No. And then he immediately handed it back to them, like, then, then you take this. I don't want, I don't want anything to do with it anymore. Yeah, it was very cute. And then Sam and Dean go back to the motel and find Garth doing his Tai Chi and all this other stuff. Sam starts to research. This showed you Dean as he's like, trying to explain stuff. Dean is just like, oh, okay, interesting. Skip ahead to how we can kill it. Yeah, just tell me how we can kill it. Sammy and so they need a samurai sword blessed, like with a certain Japanese blessing in a running spring or something like that. And they figured that shit out. I was impressed, and it worked.

LA: 35:49

I was sitting there thinking, Where the hell are they gonna

Berly: 35:52

find that now we don't find out where they found the samurai sword true. I was thinking

LA: 35:57

they were gonna have to find that specific type of sword, not that he was just gonna go get a samurai sword and then go back to his friend at the restaurant.

Berly: 36:05

Yeah. I'm like, curious, where did they where did they find the sword? What if the friend had the sword? Oh, maybe that's what we'll say. It was the friend they called. They called their friend, they called their buddy. And they were like, Hey, you remember how we paid you earlier for translating that? Um, do you have a samurai sword? And he was like, okay, weird, racist, but yeah, I do happen to have a samurai sword. You can borrow it. Better be returned to me whenever you're done.

LA: 36:31

Or it was like, what if it was just like a decoration at the restaurant? Oh,

Berly: 36:36

I like that. Even better. Take this. I like that. Even better. I just need to borrow it. I'll get it back to you. It will be returned. Oh, but by the way, before I go, I need you to come meet me out back again, because I need you to read this Japanese blessing, because I do not understand Japanese, please.

LA: 36:51

Thank you. I also like that the spring was a bottle of water, spring water. Yeah, yeah. Well,

Berly: 36:58

back at the motel that they haven't, they haven't. They haven't gone and gotten the sword blessed yet or anything. They just know this is the weapon they're trying to figure out. Okay, so Marie is the only kid left, so that's whenever Sam is like, Okay, I'll go keep an eye on Marie Dean. You go figure out the sword. Figure out how we're going to do that. And Garth stays behind with Randy. Garth yet again, using his investigatory skills, he starts talking to Randy whenever he comes to and he's asking him about the janitor who gives somebody that many chances, especially for just a janitor role. He explains that he did some Googling and he found out that the janitor's mom used to be Randy's secretary. Randy finally confesses that Lee the janitor, is, in fact, his illegitimate kid, and that's why he's been taking care of him. The mom has passed away, and, you know, he promised the mom he would never tell him, but that he would keep an eye on him. Garth is just going, Okay, we've got another kid. So he heads off to the brewery, and he grabs a whole bunch of, like, mini mini out liquor bottles. Yeah, on his way out, which I'm just like, Uh, excuse me, Garth, I thought you agreed that you would just be on wine coolers. We all saw how you reacted to that one beer. I don't think you needed liquor,

LA: 38:10

yeah, especially, like more than one of those tiny bottles,

Berly: 38:14

but to each their own, you know, to each their own. He gets there, chugs those bottles in the car, and then goes inside to find Lee. And we do see Lee cleaning, and he's using the foaming glass cleaner that works really well, and is squeegeeing window. And we see the shoju just outside the window just staring at him, being like, Oh, that was pretty good. Yeah, it was a good shot. Garth calls Dean on his way into the brewery and lets him know Lee is also, you know, Randy's kid, so somebody's got to be here. And Dean is just like, oh. And he finds Lee, and he sees that the shoujo is there to attack Lee, and poor Lee. Lee is just like, who are you?

LA: 38:54

Yeah, he's there all by himself. And then this drunk stranger shows up, is

Berly: 39:00

yelling at him, like, run. You gotta run. But then Garth, the Shoji, throws Garth across the brewery through a glass window, and he gets knocked out. Well, Lee is believing him. Then, yeah, Lee believes him in that moment, like, Oh, damn. So Lee starts trying to get away, and the shoujo is like, slamming all the doors because Lee is sober, so he can't see the monster. He's just seeing stuff move, like doors getting closed and stuff like that. Dean calls Sam, and he's at the bar, keeping an eye on Marie, throwing him back because he's trying to see if the monster is around. Dean calls Sam, was like, Can you drive? And he's like, in the middle of almost doing another shot, and is like, he runs outside and confiscates a cab. And again, this was something that wasn't necessary for the episode, but I loved it. He's got, like, this old man cab driver. He gets in the cab and it's just like, okay, Can we hurry? Can we hurry the cab drivers? Like, well, I like to drive safe. I thought it was. So cute.

LA: 40:00

Yeah, I loved it. Oh, well,

Berly: 40:03

Sam gets to the brewery in time to save, like, kind of jump into Garth's spot and start protecting Lee from the shoju because he can see it. But poor Sam gets knocked out for like the fifth time this season. He gets shoved into the wall, puts a hole in the sheet rock. He hits it so hard and is unconscious. But then luckily, Dean comes in, but Dean can't see anything. Dean hasn't been drinking. He's got he just went and talked to his friend at the restaurant to get that sword blast. He wasn't as prepared as Garth. He didn't have the miniature liquor bottles ready to go. But for whatever reason, Dean is there by himself for a second, and loses the samurai sword. And it's like a Jedi mind trick, like it comes flying over, almost directly into his hand. Luckily, he doesn't take time to be like, What the fuck in that moment, because I gotta say, I would have been startled, and I've been like, what the fuck and probably would have frozen a little bit. But luckily, Dean, Dean shakes it off. Thank God, because Sam comes to and is able to kind of guide him as to where the shojo is, takes care of that. She goes Bye, bye. And then it's afterwards that Dean is just like, what the that moved and he starts going, Bobby, Bobby. Are you here? So I will say one of the things that I'm happy was addressed in this episode is that they are having a conversation at one point in the motel where Dean and Garth are kind of talking about the flask, and Garth saying, Are you sure Bobby's not haunting you? And Sam mentions, well, I know he's not here because I've already tried, I've already tried to talk to him. I've already tried to see if he was here. And I'm like, that's why he was so pissy in the slice girls episode, and was so like mad about it, and being like, we want him to be here, but he's not. And like, being so pissy, it's because he had, he wanted Bobby to be there, and he had done all the things to try and see if Bobby was there and couldn't communicate with him, and that's why Sam was being so aggressive about all

LA: 42:04

that. Wow. Okay. I'm like,

Berly: 42:06

that makes sense now. Dean, like, asked him, like, Why didn't you tell me? He was like, oh no, oh no. Just decided to be a dick to you instead. Yeah, which we've all done that. So I'm like, relatable. Yeah, that's one of those things that, like, didn't really matter, and I probably would have forgotten about. Forgotten about it if it was a few episodes later. So I'm happy they did it now, yeah, because I remember in that episode that really bothered me. I was like, the aggression behind it just seems like they've had this conversation 500 times or something. I don't understand. Why is Sam so angry? Now it makes sense. Now it makes sense. So the next day, they're all in the motel again, Garth insists on hugging both Sam and Dean. And I liked that. Sam was like, Okay, you're right. He grew on me, yeah. Sam liked him. By the end of everything, Garth takes off first and his theme song, I guess I

LA: 42:56

know I like, like his intro and his outro, yeah, kicks

Berly: 43:00

in as he takes off in his El Camino. And then Sam and Dean pack up, and I think that's when they talked a little bit more about Sam trying to find out if Bobby was still around, and all that other kind of stuff. But they pack up and leave, they get in the car, and then dean runs back in, or before, before Dean runs back in, they pull out, and we see that Bobby is, in fact, standing right there. It was just like, Oh, my heart, no, my heart. Because they literally were just having this conversation where they've decided to accept, yeah, he's not here. Like, if he was here, surely he would let us know, like, who knows more about ghosts than Bobby and all this other stuff? And so it showed him just kind of standing there, that that hurt my heart, that I was like, Oh, he's just watching over them. Yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't want them to know that he's there. He's just watching over them. But then they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's change that. That's not what's happening here. Because Dean gets up and goes inside and it's like, oh, there you are. And Bobby gets so excited thinking that Dean sees him, but Dean was talking about the flask. Yeah, he goes walking up and picks up the flask, it turns around, and then we get the whole I'm right here. You itches. Why don't you see me? Falls it's like so it's not that he doesn't want them to know. It's that he clearly can't figure out how to let them know other than the little things that he's already been doing. How frustrating that must

LA: 44:22

be. I know we'll see how that plays out, right? So this was written

Berly: 44:26

by Adam Glass and directed by Phil segresha gore. There was good Gore in this.

LA: 44:33

The best was the was it? Rant, ray, ray the tree. Yeah,

Berly: 44:39

yeah. That was the most gory. Oh, yeah, that was really good. I still really liked the hand coming it wasn't as gory. We didn't see as much blood or what have you, but I liked the hand coming through Lillian, too. Me too. Yeah, the little the little fingers that we saw inside the shirt, because they didn't puncture through her shirt. We could just see them moving under the shirt. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, the angles of that and the panning down, yeah, I would say those. Those were my favorites. Uh, did you adore anything about this episode?

LA: 45:08

I mean, obviously guards, like, having him back was fun. I thought the storyline was kind of funny, where, like, they had to be drunk to see, yeah, the monster and everything. So I don't know it was just different, but

Berly: 45:19

I liked it. It was it was new. That's an obstacle that we have not had in the supernatural episode yet, where they had to figure out how to fight it drunk, and they had to kind of rely on each other to be each other's eyes. In this case, because Dean wasn't drunk, but Sam was. And you would think that if somebody was going to be sober and somebody was going to drunk, be drunk, that that would have been flipped, right? I liked this one. I thought this was really, really, really cute, yeah, and I liked all the nods to Japanese horror throughout the movie. Good show. Well, what about the lore? Well,

LA: 45:51

for the lore, we're gonna be talking about this spirit. It is the shojo, the Japanese spirit of spirits. It's a spirit that is a little bit less malevolent, but still dangerous and warrants respect the shojo. Is an orangutan. Orangutan? Is it an orangutan, like water spirit that haunts the coastlines and shallow coves of the Japanese isles, in relation to many Japanese demons and spirits, they are very peaceful. They do, however, pass lethal judgment in a unique way, along with their trademark seaweed skirts, orange fur, ape like appearance and proximity to the water, the shoujo are defined by their propensity for alcohol and drunkenness. They are said to be extremely fond of drinking Saki and any other spirit they can get their hands on, and are usually found lying on the beach in various states of inebriation. They have a good time. Yeah? They do mean, wow. They like to party,

Berly: 46:52

but they're gonna judge you while they do it.

LA: 46:54

Right? That they're gonna do it, but they'll judge you if you do it, yeah? How dare you. Shoujo have also witnessed haunting. Have also been witnessed haunting breweries, bars and clubs where alcohol can be found. Many a graveyard shift employee has claimed to see these spirits keeping the party alive long after last call, though, these spirits are generally just trying to catch a buzz and have a good time. They do have a slightly darker side as aficionados of alcohol, they have become competent brewers in their own right. Shoujo are said to have their own alcoholic concoctions, which they will share with those who they who encounter them before taking a sip of shoujo liquor. However, you may want to double check if you are on the naughty or nice list to I know it's like a drunk Santa to those or Krampus in this case. Oh, yeah, that's there you go to those of you who are good, righteous, moral and upstanding. The drink of shoujo will taste heavenly. It will get you properly drunk on flavorful tones of alcoholic bliss. And I it says this. This article says, I'd wager you would get to skip the hangover. But if you are an immoral or evil person, the drink will taste of the sourest toxin. But if your soul is tainted enough, it will act as a poison. Some say the shojo poison will kill the evil person immediately. Others say it will bind you to change your ways and kill down the road if you don't. These creatures essentially exist in a perpetual stage of fresh of a freshman in college. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't envy them a little that is not me saying that this is it says, of course, I'm glad not to be covered in orange fur. The only thing that makes the shojo a relatively weak contender for the cryptid cage match is that in order for the shojo to harm you, it seems you have to choose to drink their liquor. Of course, they are orangutans, which are 10 times stronger than humans. So if they wanted to seize you and force it down your throat, surely they could. Okay,

Berly: 49:05

I normally am kind of picky whenever they do an interpretation that's super far off from the lore, but I have to say I would have not wanted to see an orangutan, yeah, you know, and the fact that they were paying homage to Japanese horror, yeah, with the way they did the monster, I like the interpretation in this episode. Me

LA: 49:28

too. Yeah, I think it would have been too, too hokey. I don't know how they could have done it, yeah, I just wouldn't have worked, right? I feel like it

Berly: 49:35

could have potentially been more of a joke, like to make that super, super scary, like, I think what they did was perfect with this, yeah, this interpretation. Me too. All right. Well, a quote to close it out. Dean said, you have the CEO of the douchiest micro brew in the US gagged in your hot tub. You really think that's gonna end well.

LA: 49:55

And Garth says, I'm not feeling love. Oh, Garth. No Cheers.

Berly: 50:03

Thank you for listening to denim wrapped

LA: 50:05

nightmares. Follow us on Twitter or Instagram, leave a review and let us know how we can get involved in the fandom.

Berly: 50:13

This was fun, jerk.

LA: 50:15

It always is, bitch. You.