Pac-man Fever (8x20)

Berly and LA tackle Supernatural Season 8, Episode 20: "Pac-Man Fever" - where Charlie returns, Dean's emerald eyes are absolutely stunning, and Sam's demand avoidance kicks into overdrive.

The episode opens with a fun time-travel misdirect before revealing it's actually Charlie's nightmare. Meanwhile, Sam's barely recovered from the second trial - he can't even hit the gun range target and just shoots the walls instead. Charlie shows up with a case about victims with liquefied insides (djinn!), and after proving her shooting skills and enduring a "Walking on Sunshine" montage, she partners with Dean while Sam stays behind to rest.

Plot twist: Sam ignores orders and shows up at the crime scene anyway. The coroner turns out to be the djinn who kidnaps Charlie, trapping her in a nightmare video game where she's desperately trying to save hospital patients. The emotional core: Charlie's been secretly caring for her comatose mother, and her nightmare reflects her fear of losing her.

Dean drinks African dream root to enter Charlie's nightmare, leading to THAT scene where he looks absolutely gorgeous in army green against neon walls - the hosts were very appreciative of how the lighting made his eyes pop. Dean helps Charlie confront her fear and let go, breaking the djinn's hold. Sam meanwhile handles the djinn's teenage son back in the real world.

The episode ends with Charlie saying goodbye to "my boys," then reading The Hobbit to her mother one last time before letting her go. Dean hugs Sam instead of lecturing him - a genuinely touching moment that had Berly tearing up during both the episode AND the recap.

"Real life role-playing is hard."

Sources:

• https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Pac-Man_Fever 
• https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/Map_256_Glitch 
• https://www.buzzsprout.com/2076426/episodes/12389228-what-is-and-what-should-never-be-2x20

Transcript

Berly: 0:01

Welcome to Denna Wrapped Nightmares, a 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. I'm Burley, and I'm a new fan of the series. I'm LA, and I'm here along for the ride. Now let's get tipsy. Hello, LA. Hey Burley. Our last episode was Taxi Driver. Sam and Dean responded to a call from little little sweet Kevin. And he was terrified after hearing Crowley's voice in his head. And after the guys heard the news, they teamed up with a reaper named AJ. Ajay.

Berly: 0:44

AJ.

LA: 0:45

Maybe. Who helped them deal with the second trial from the tablet. And then Dean also uh received a visit from Naomi and realized he must find Benny and ask for a huge favor. Oh, I know.

Berly: 1:01

Still mad about that. Well, today's episode is titled Pac-Man Fever. Pac-Man Fever. It's the 20th episode of season eight and originally aired on April 24th, 2013. When we first open up, we see I thought it was like a doctor asleep at the desk with the hair and everything. And whenever he suddenly sat up, I was completely surprised to see it was Dean. Me too. I made the joke, I was like, what's Dean Smith doing here? And then, like a psychopath, I looked over to the other couch where you would be to be like, ha ha ha ha ha. And then I was like, oh, she's not here. Because I've just gotten so used to watching Supernatural with you next to me on the couch. So yeah. So I just went ahead and did that the rest of the episode. I just made jokes and asked questions to the couch. Because you know, that's not dangerous. I like it. But yeah, you remember Dean Smith from It's a Terrible Life? The mark. Yeah, I was like, what's Dean Smith doing here? He looked good in his little uniform. He looked very good. And there was one scene later on in the episode where we see him in the uniform and everything again, and there's like this neon green wall behind him. And then he's got on like the army green uniform, and it just made his green eyes pop. Like it looked so good.

LA: 2:19

It was when he was at the elevator. Yes. Yes.

Berly: 2:22

Because I thought the same thing. I was like, oh, look at those eyes. They looked so good. Yeah. It looked so good. Like he needs to wear that color more often. I don't know if it was the color he was wearing or if it was the combination of the elevator with the neon green and all that other stuff.

LA: 2:37

I think it was the lighting too, because it it was like it seemed like it got really bright in that moment.

Berly: 2:42

It looked good. Yeah. He looked real good. Beautiful green eyes. Yeah. And that was Pac-Man Fever. Yeah. There you go. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Anyway, he startles himself awake and he's looking around, very confused as to what's happening. He goes out into the hallway and this place has been ransacked. It is all kinds of fucked up. He picks up a newspaper and it says 1951. I don't remember what else it said on there, but that's the only important part. And so, of course, we're thinking time travel episode. Right. It was not a time travel episode. I liked that little twist though. I liked that little misdirect.

LA: 3:22

Well, as like as the the episode kept going on, I was like, wait a minute. When is it going to tie back into what happened at the very beginning? I just like kept waiting. And then finally it happened because I was like, I even looked. I was like, how much is left in this episode for them to like clear that up for me?

Berly: 3:39

Wait a minute. When do we get to see Dean in that outfit again? Hang on. Yeah. What's going on here? So he's waiting for the elevators as we speak, but this is not the elevator scene. Just clarification here, guys. And then we see like these like creatures kind of approaching him, and we got supernatural. Well, then we cut to 24 hours earlier. Sam, now this is on the opposite spectrum, right? Like Dean's all clean cut and his emerald eyes and he looks so good and all that. Mm-mm. And then Sam comes stumbling out, and you know what? Like, I know that it's supposed to show that he's having such a rough time and everything. I get that. But also, I liked it. I liked it. A little ruffled up hair. Ruffled up hair and stuff. The sleepy look. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He's apparently been asleep for like over a day. Yeah. He had a nice 18-hour nap. Good for him. You know? I loved it when Routine like threw the beer and so he didn't even flinch.

LA: 4:42

Like he didn't even try to go for it.

Berly: 4:44

He just kept it.

LA: 4:46

Yeah, that was funny.

Berly: 4:48

That was funny. It was very cute. Sam, you know, he's like, we gotta go find Kevin. It's like, great. I'm really happy you guys are concerned about Kevin now. A day late, but we'll let we're we're gonna let it slide at this point. Poor Kevin. My the poor baby. No. Dean lets him know Garth is out looking. We've got an APB with every single hunter. Everyone's doing everything they can do. And you and I are going to do everything that we can do from here. We're not going anywhere. We're staying here. You need to heal up more. Apparently, this second trial hit him way harder. Like at first, he said at first it felt basically the same, but it wasn't until the next day that he realized how much more strongly this trial had affected him. Yeah. Sam is just like, no, like I'm good to go. I got this. What is it? What's the what's the uh not the abominable snowman? What the hell, Burley? Yeah. The eight million dollar man or whatever. Is that a thing?

LA: 5:52

I I I I think I know what you're talking about, but I don't think that's it.

Berly: 5:56

Okay, well, Sam is just like, I'm good to go.

LA: 5:58

Yeah.

Berly: 5:58

I can just keep on going. I can take a hit and just keep on going. This is fine. Let's go. And Dean goes, no, I don't think so. Come with me. Come with me. And so they go down into their gun range that is in this men of letters bunker. I mean, how deep does this place go? I don't know, but I want to know. I want to know where's my guided walking tour through the men of letters bunker. I know it's a set, but like, come on. I want to see more. Me too.

LA: 6:28

I want to go. Where's the blueprint? I want to be there. Like I said to begin with, before I even knew what it was, I just want to go there if it's the safest place in the world.

Berly: 6:35

Right? Like, why doesn't this place actually exist? What the fuck? You know?

LA: 6:39

Rude. It's really rude.

Berly: 6:41

It was rude. Well, so they go down their little gun range, and Dean puts on his stuff and picks up his gun and bang, bang, bang, bang. And he hits the target in various places, but he hits the target. Like if it was a monster running at him, he would have succeeded in hitting said monster. And so he tells Sam, Now you pick up the gun, and if you can hit the target, then okay. We'll go out. Sam does not hit the target, y'all. He doesn't even hit the paper, it just hits like the brick, the concrete wall on either side. So like it's settled. They are not going anywhere right now. While they're chit-chatting, they receive an email from Charlie. I did not expect to see Charlie again so soon. Me neither. Two episodes in one season, because we had her already. So yeah, that was it was a fun surprise. Yeah. It was cool to see her. She happens to be in Kansas and has come upon a case that she wants to to the boys to work on. So she's like, hey, like I I I triangulated your area of tracked you guys, done whatever Charlie does within like a two-mile mate radius, but then I lose you. It goes dead. And so they figure out that while their technology and everything still works in the bunker, like, where do they have Wi-Fi there? They're using the internet, they're using their laptops. Yeah. Those meta letters were ahead of their time. Way, way ahead. Memory foam mattress, and they have Wi-Fi. It's amazing. Because we know that they didn't have somebody come install Wi-Fi, because if they were willing to let somebody come do that, then surely they would have thought to let Kevin move into the bunker. Yeah. But anyway, all their shit works, but it's like blocked somehow where other people can't track them. They used some sort of reference, but I don't remember what it is now, and I don't take notes. So magic. Magic. Magic. They said, Oh yeah, like from that spy magic movie. People cannot track us here. We are safe. Cool. So they tell her, Yeah, come on. We're gonna give you directions. Come meet us here. She gets there and is like, Are you guys gonna let me in your bat cave bunker? They were just like, um, maybe. Why are you in Kansas? What's going on? And she said, Oh, I was at a Comic-Con. I was at a convention. And Sam was like in the middle of the week. She was like, Yeah, you know, like I had collectibles and stuff. I love that whenever he hugged Charlie Sam, he acted like it was like taking all of his strength. Like he was so weak. Oh, oh. It's hard to lift those arms. Hug and then fall into the the hood of the car. So already things are like they're asking questions. Already they're like, this is weird. But whatever, we're gonna go with it. Then she starts talking about how she's she's got her little iPad thing where she's got all the monsters and stuff, and she can eliminate what it is. And that was really cute. I loved it when Sam was like, I hate that. I want one.

LA: 9:44

Yeah. Yeah.

Berly: 9:46

Very cute. And she lets them know that, you know, after they left, gave her the big old speech and everything about being heroes and yada yada. That she's like now gotten to where she's really into it and she's kind of doing hunting stuff on her own. And she found the books, Chuck's books about that. I thought that was hilarious that she's read all of those. That was a very cute throwback. I thought we were gonna get chucked too. That would have been cool. Yeah, but that didn't happen, so I guess he's still being a white light somewhere, doing whatever he's doing, white, white lighting it up. Well, anyway, back to the case that Charlie has brought to them. Some dude in Kansas is dead, you know. That's how these things normally start. And his body was liquefied, like his organs and stuff were liquefied on the inside. Seems like it's up their alley. Seems like you know. Seems like she's right that they've got a case. Well, because Dean has decided Sam is in no condition, no condition whatsoever to hunt. He must stay at the bunker. Charlie volunteers to be his number two on this case. But first, she has to prove that she can, you know, go go on the hunt. And so Dean takes her to the gun range. Charlie got the full tour. When do we get the full tour? We know there's a kitchen there. We haven't seen a kitchen yet. We know there's a shower there, we haven't seen them shower yet. Nope. There's a lot of unanswered stuff that needs to happen this season, in my opinion. It's important. That Naomi stuff can wait. But anyway, he takes Charlie to the gun range and is like, if you can hit that target and she pits up the gun and gets like two right in the head, like almost like right in the eyes, like just bang bang, and puts it down. And he's like, Okay, fine, you can come. But first, we gotta get you out of those clothes. Oh, no graphic tees allowed, apparently. Which makes sense. You can't wear anything highly identifiable, right? But yeah, yeah. Now, with that being said, they go to the little store and they do with the adorable little montage to her theme song, Walking on Sunshine. It was very cute. I loved that black and white dress that she had on at the I think it was the first one she came out and did you see it? It's like this black and white of sleeveless number. Was the top black and the bottom was black and white? No, it was like the middle part was white and then like black. I think it was the middle part that was white and black. Very cute. Uh I I loved that black and white number. She had some cute options in her little montage going on. And then Dean paused the music and was like, no montage. Pants suit, power pant suit, completely drab, you know. Like I said, not memorable, not memorable at all. That's the way we're going. And he also uses Charlie's phone to call Sam while they're there. Check on him, see how, see how he's doing. Their first stop while investigating this case is the coroner's office, because of course they want to check out them bodies. Oh, yeah. They go in, and I don't know if this was an intentional throwback or an accidental repeat of the joke where Charlie pulls out her FBI badge and it's upside down. Because Castill did that whenever he went. Remember, whenever he was a hunter for the a day, like way back when with Dean. So it must have been it had to have been an intentional thing because it was his first time working a case with Dean. Yeah. And this is Charlie's first time working a case. So I'm assuming it was an intentional throwback, uh, which was very cute. Oh, I loved it when she was like, Castel seems helpful and dreamy. That line was funny. That line was funny. Well, the coroner, she ain't fucking around. Oh no. She says, Do you have the paperwork? Do you have the inspector body paper paperwork approved? Like, give me that and we'll get it done. And they try to flirt, they try to talk their way through it, and she's just like, Listen, I'll do you a solid. You get the form, and then uh like she was not in the mood.

LA: 13:51

Yeah.

Berly: 13:52

Which of course makes sense. And I loved her. I thought she was beautiful. Um, she looked like she could play Rose McGowan's sister or something to me. I could see that. Yeah. She just every once in a while she made a face where I was like, oh, Rose McGowan. Dean tells Charlie that they'll just have to go on to plan B and just come back later for a good old B and E. Yep. Whenever nobody's in the office. And in the meantime, body snatching. Yeah, let's go get some food. Let's go chow down until everybody's out of here and we can come back and break in. Sam, back at the bunker, is of course being Sam and doing what Sam does. I think Sam Sam might have ADHD and have demand avoidance because it's like, don't drink that demon blood, Sam. And he's like, I gotta do it. You know, don't do that, Sam. Oh, I gotta do it. Stay here and heal, Sam. No. So he goes into the gun range. He does test himself first and he manages to actually hit the paper. He still doesn't hit the target.

LA: 14:52

Yeah.

Berly: 14:52

But he hits the paper and he just goes, close enough, and he leaves. I thought it was funny. I relate to that demand avoidance thing, you know? Like that's my thing. Oh, yeah. You know? Ask me to do something. No problem. I'd love to. Demand that I will dig my heels in. We see two dudes, you know, taking in nature at night, walking through the park, playing on their what were those? Were they sidekicks? Like what were those?

LA: 15:24

I don't know. I didn't even I didn't even really pay attention.

Berly: 15:26

They had they had their little Palm Pilot games that they were playing, just walking and talking with each other, and they stumble upon a dead body. And of course, they did what boys do, you know. We've all read or seen Stand by Me, right? Get a stick and poke it.

LA: 15:41

Yeah.

Berly: 15:42

Sit here and poke at it. And like they're just poking and poking and poking. And he was all swollen. All swollen up. Super bloated. So, you know, we got our 71st blood sploogge of the Supernatural series. It was just like a straight shot. Yeah, they popped him. He and he popped them. Yeah. Oh yeah, he did. Right in the face. Right in the face. Just like we got another body that has been liquefied from the inside out. Dean and Charlie go to check out this latest victim. They show up on the scene of the crime. And one of the people there is just like, oh yeah, the other FBI agent is right over there. Go talk to them. And they're like, who? What other FBI agent? We are the only here pretending to be FBI. And they were like, that tall six foot four something who looks like he should be at home sleeping over there. That one. And they were like, oh fuck. It's Sam. Of course, Dean scolds Sam. How dare he? How dare he? We don't have time for this. We don't have time for this fucking around. Charlie goes and talks to the to the what witnesses. Witnesses, not victims. The witnesses. And uses some video game language talking about the games to get their trust. And I don't remember what she got from that. I thought she got some information from it. I think she did, but I don't remember recognizing that. She found out something that ended up being important. Maybe it was the blue handprint thing or something.

LA: 17:15

Yeah, I think that's what it was.

Berly: 17:16

Okay, so the blue handprint thing. We'll go with that. We could be wrong, but we're just gonna go with that. He had a blue handprint on his head or something. I don't know. And these boys tell her about it. Like, oh, it was on his belly. I thought it was his arm. Oh, it was on his arm. Okay. Anyway, Dean gets pissy and takes off and ditches Charlie with Sam. But Sam is like, Charlie, it's okay. I stole your car to get here. And Charlie's just like, what the fuck? We know and we know where he's going because he told you what his plan was going to be. Because the body's not there. Like, that's why they had to go talk to the kids because the body's not there for them to look at. Which is weird, right? Like, what the fuck? Dean walks in to the coroner's office building, wherever we are again. And Sam and Charlie are already there, waiting politely for him near the front door. And they were like, You took a while. What took you so long? And Dean seemed very offended that they beat him there. But he had to stop and get gas, guys. Okay. Shut up. Turns out, like the they already burned the other two bodies. They're gone. They can't find this newest body. And the coroner comes walking in after business hours to go sit at her desk and do some more paperwork. Shady. Shady. Well, Charlie goes to distract the coroner while Sam and Dean are in the morgue area figuring all this other stuff out. And like, what the fuck is going on? This is really weird. How did these bodies already get burned? Like, this is some weird ass shit going on. They go back to the bunker and they research some more, admire each other's tools and books and stuff. As nerds do, right? We like to admire each other's toys and everything. In the grand conclusion of things, they figure out that this is a certain type of gin that uh is doing this stuff. They liquefy the insides and leave the blue thing. And they get another very important clue, but that's not later, that's later in the episode when the gin actually tells them about this. Charlie steps out of the room very awkwardly. And she doesn't even just step out of the room. She like took off. She was like, Well, I'm gonna go. And it's like, you're in this massive ass bunker. I bet you they have more bedrooms and they have memory foam. Like, where are you going? But no, she like all of a sudden was like, I'm hungry or something, and just awkwardly picks up her shit and leaves after they figure out that it's a gin. She ends up going to, I don't know if it was a motel room or an apartment. I was wondering that too. I have a feeling that maybe it's like just like a cheap apartment somewhere because she's a little loft. Yeah, because she she says like she comes there so frequently, like she's always coming there to visit her mom. Like she's always coming back to Kansas to try and pop in to read to her and see her and all of that. So I I wouldn't be surprised, but maybe it was a motel. It doesn't really matter. But she's in there and she's got all these different IDs and she's clicking away on her computer doing something. I don't know. Like banking, like there was some banking. Yeah, that's that's where we find out it was all the donations and stuff. So she's paying for her mom's health care, essentially, to keep her alive, to keep her on life support. But we don't know that's what's happening at this time. She was looking at her fake IDs and stuff. So I'm wondering if she has bank accounts under multiple identities. And so she was like figuring out from which identity she wanted to pay into this fund this time and like doing all of that kind of stuff. That's what I'm thinking she was potentially doing.

LA: 20:41

Yeah, I think so too.

Berly: 20:43

And then we got like some nice classic scary movie shit here where you hear the noise and like looking around the door, creaking and the the camera like zooming in and her looking over and there being nothing there, and all we got some nice stuff like that going on, which was a good touch. I always I always love it whenever they allude to horror uh and scary stuff in these episodes, even whenever the episode itself isn't all that scary. Yeah. And uh-oh, it's freaking Rose McGowan coroner mom here. She just pops up out of nowhere, and like her eyes went super blue, like almost angel stuff going on. It was just like, ah, like really blue. Like it was really bright. They upgraded. Well, I guess that they didn't upgrade the gin. This is just a fancier gin. Yeah, just a different type. Just different type. She's fancy. Well, they can't get a hold of her on the phone. So luckily, Dean being the sneaky sneak that he is, when he used Charlie's phone in the women's dress shop or wherever they were, he turned on her GPS and like tracked they so they track her phone, they go to her apartment, and they see that like clearly there was a struggle of some sort here. Clearly, something weird is going on. They look through her shit, and then that's whenever they actually see that they are uh that the banking site or whatever that she was at is for a coma patient named Gertrude Middleton. So Dean goes to the hospital to visit the woman that's in it's a Kansas hospital and try to get more information from her, and then he just kind of puts stuff together from they're talking about the kid got in trouble and she was like 12 and disappeared and all this other kind of stuff. And he puts two and two together, as did me as a viewer, and I'm sure you that this is Charlie's mom. And like Charlie must go and visit her, I would say at least every two to three weeks, because her roots were immaculate. Like that hair. Charlie goes there and reads her book and touches up her roots and makes sure her nails are done. She's taking care of her mama as best she can. We see Charlie waking up in an abandoned warehouse, and the Jen, what's her name? She had a name. Jennifer. Jennifer's there, and she does her villainous, like, yeah, I'm a gen, but I feed off fear, and I have the fancier blue eyes, and whenever my tattoos grow, it does this cool blue stuff, too. Because I'm a fancy Jen.

LA: 23:17

I'm a different breed.

Berly: 23:18

I'm different kind. And she said something else to Charlie. Well, she's got Charlie strapped to a chair. Right. Maybe that's all it was. I just she let that chair and those ropes speak for themselves. Right? I mean, she fucks Charlie up. Uh yeah, yeah. You know, luckily she doesn't like beat her up or anything, but she fucks her up and conks her out. And it took like a couple of times, I think, right, to get Charlie to go under. Dean is talking with Sam back at the bunker and lets him know what's going on with Gertrude, Middleton, and uh that he thinks that that's Charlie's mom. And then Sam is talking about the coroner and all this funky shit, and like basically that they're thinking that she's the Jen, and that she had gotten really good at cleaning up after herself, covering her victims and all that other kind of stuff. I like I loved how Dean was even like coroner. That's a good cover, like smart, smart career field to go into, right? Um, and they even wondered, they were like, so what's happened that all of a sudden she started getting sloppy? You know, and they're like, Oh, we we'll we'll ask her about that. We'll ask her about that when we go to one of these two properties. Well, one of the properties was like a home, and the other property was like an abandoned boathouse or something like that. And so they were like, Yeah, I guess we're probably gonna start at the abandoned, empty, crazy, creepy place. Of course, you know, like they were right, luckily, you know, good for them. And the whole we should ask her about it. We should find out why she's gotten sloppy, that went out the window because Jennifer was trying to hurt Sam. Yeah. And as we know, nobody fucks with Sammy. You don't mess with Sammy. So Dean ends up killing Jennifer without ever finding out what's changed, why all of a sudden her MO got different. They immediately tried to go and help Charlie. Now, I thought that the gin cure was milk of magnesia, but that was not milk of magnesia in that giant syringe. So they must have used a different recipe, not a Campbell soup recipe, but they must have used a different recipe that they found at the Min of Letters bunker. However, this one still doesn't work either. So they're just like, well, fuck, what are we gonna do? Then they think, well, the gin puts you into a dream. We'll use that good old African dream root that we used in that one episode back in like, what was it, season three? We'll use that and go into Charlie's dreams and get her to fight it from the inside out. Dean, of course, drinks the stuff because Sam is in no condition. Nope. No condition. And then he tells Sam, okay, I need to go to sleep quickly. So, like, punch me, help knock me out. Sam punches him once, and then Dean's like, man, like you must really be affected because you're off here, and then he like uppercuts him almost. Damn, damn. Jensen Ackles did a great fall into that chair and fell over, passed out. I thought it was believable. I thought that was an excellent fall. He he did he did good. He did good. And then we finally see the scene from the beginning. Dean waking up. He's not time traveled, he's in Charlie's dream. Uh, but whenever he finally meets up with Charlie, it's at the elevator, and that is the scene where we have the eyes and the beautiful emerald eyes. He looked so good. Charlie looked fantastic too. I would want him to look like that in my dream too. He will look like that in my dream. Tonight. Tonight, yeah. It is decided. It is decided upon right now. But Charlie looked fantastic. I liked her a little bit. She looked like a bad. She looked so good. I she totally, whenever the elevators opened up, I didn't even know they were in a video game yet. And I totally thought she looks like I was thinking like Resident Evil. Like she she looked so good. And Felicia Day has some wonderful arms. So kudos to them for letting her show those off because she looked fantastic. Uh, so we find out this isn't a dream, it's a nightmare because, like the gin said, they feed off of fear, not your happiness, not what you wish was going on. Uh, these gins are different. They're different guys. They're running around fighting the monsters. Charlie lets him know that she's defeated this level multiple times and it just keeps resetting and getting harder and harder. She makes a joke about hang on, I Googled it. She said that it's like uh Pac-Man level 256. Apparently, in the original Pac-Man, that was like the highest level you could get to, and you had to be like a fucking badass in Pac-Man to get that high, so not that many people got there. But it essentially was a kill screen because people they didn't expect people to actually be able to get that far in the game. So it would just like glitch and it would be impossible for you to actually finish the level. Oh, okay. The more you know, right? It's important to the plot. Well, Dean figures out okay, well, what if what she's feeding on is your fear, then you need to confront your fear, and you're not actually scared of these little fucking monsters here. And they're the game is in a hospital, they're in a room protecting patients and all this other stuff. He's like, What you're actually scared of is losing your mom. Like, I I know, I know what the deal is. That's what you're scared of. And she they it was a really great scene. I really enjoyed the scene where she's like explaining like that she is terrified of losing her, and it was it was excellent. Their facial expressions were really great. Um, I enjoyed that whole monologue with Charlie explaining what happened and how she feels like it's her fault, and Dean comforting her that it was not her fault and going back and forth, and then Dean also seeing Sam in there.

LA: 29:09

Yeah.

Berly: 29:10

And Charlie being like, wait a minute, is this my nightmare or yours? It kind of blending together, like the dreamers sharing the dream. It was like inception, you know? Right. Sam, Sam was like the train in, he was Leonardo DiCaprio's train. He just came charging through. I was like, oh no. Well, while all of this is going on, Sam is still in the abandoned boathouse or wherever it is that they are. And oh, I forgot. That's what it was. Dean tells Charlie, yeah, we killed the gin, and you haven't woken up yet. And that's when Charlie went both of them. And Dean was like, the fuck? And so that's why he saw, that's why he saw Sam because he was scared that this other gin was maybe getting Sam and all this other kind of stuff. He started he suddenly got scared too because he left his brother with the gin. That's what it is. Well, in the meantime, sure enough. There's another fucking gin in the boathouse, and Sam is just like, Oh my god, all right. You're under 18, so I feel really bad about it, but I'm gonna kill you.

LA: 30:09

Yeah. Sorry, I killed your mom too. Yeah. Sorry about that.

Berly: 30:12

My bad. But I mean, the kid was just like, I've come of age, I need to feed. I mean, he was he was being really sloppy, you know? Oh, yeah. You should have followed in your mom's footsteps. Get that stuff in check. And then nobody would have known. You would have gotten away with it. Well, back in the dream, Charlie does decide to let go and stop fighting, like Dean has been encouraging her to do. She quits shooting the zombies, quit shooting the monsters and all of that. And the monsters like essentially disappear when she drops her guns. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that. Dean was right. They just needed to stop fighting and just accept it and let it go. And they woke up. We see them outside the bunker. And Charlie is saying bye to the fellas. Saying bye. She said, My boys. She called them my boys. It was so cute. And she's assuring Sam that he's a fucking badass because she's read all that stuff in the books and that he's gonna be fine. He's going to survive these trials and to just keep going. And I love it, it's kind of an ongoing Star Star Wars reference with the whole, I love you. I know. That whole line, I like that's happened in the show a few times now. And it's just so iconic. I love it. I love it. So after she says goodbye to the fellas, gives them a hug, she does go to the hospital to see her mom touch up her roots and read her a book one more time. But we actually we see her signing paperwork, I just remembered. So she is letting her mom go. Um, but she was like, one more time before I leave. And of all the books that she's gonna read to her one more time, she picks the hobbit. So she's gonna be there for a while. Right. You know, she's gonna be there for a while. But they told her to take her time. They did. So by all means, you do that.

LA: 31:57

She will.

Berly: 31:58

And then back in the bunker, Dean, whenever he goes inside. Sam went inside first, and Dean and Charlie chatted a little bit more. Dean Dean went inside. I want to talk about this too. I kind of skipped over it. Um, and so he goes inside, and Sam's already standing up, apologizing, because he's realizing he did put himself in danger. Like, what if that hadn't been a kid? What if that had been a full grown gin? Sam would have been fucked, you know? So he's he's kind of realized he fucked up that he actually wasn't in the condition that he should have been. So he's immediately standing up and being like, okay, Dean, I'm sorry. Like, you were right, I shouldn't have come out in the field. And Dean just grabs him and just hugs him. I know. And just holds them. And they just sit there. I'm tearing up. Oh my god, I must be PMSing. I cried while I was watching the episode, but I wasn't expecting to tear up while I was talking about it. But that was a good hug. That looked like a bear hug. Good hug. Oh. And Dean just cuts them off. And it's just like, let's go find Kevin. And that was the end. Yep. It was written by Robbie Thompson. Oh. Okay. I loved a lot of the visuals in this, so this isn't going to be a surprise or a shocker. It was directed by Robert Singer.

LA: 33:09

Well, yeah.

Berly: 33:10

Wasn't any gore.

LA: 33:12

Well, just the sploog, really.

Berly: 33:13

Oh, yeah. Well, I would say the body was grosser than the splooge.

LA: 33:16

Oh, that's true. Yeah, it's so bloated.

Berly: 33:18

Bloated belly.

LA: 33:19

And like we could stick when they first poked his like liquidy belly. Oh.

Berly: 33:25

And then whenever they then whenever they were like poking it, like and like pressing into it. It was pretty gross. It's a pretty, pretty gross body. Whoever I wonder what they filled him with. Because it had to have been prosthetic, right? Yeah. So we know that was Benson and Toby. And so I wonder what if it was just like a water, just water in there. I don't know. It didn't feel like it was water. I wonder if it was more gelatinous. I don't know. But it was it was gross. It was gross. I would say so. We had the sploog, yes, but I would say the goriest thing of the episode was the body.

LA: 34:04

Yeah, it was pretty gross.

Berly: 34:06

It was pretty nasty. Did you adore anything about this episode?

LA: 34:11

Oh seeing Charlie again. Yeah. What about you?

Berly: 34:15

Charlie. Charlie. And it was just it was just a cute episode. I I enjoyed it, and the guys looked hot. You know, each in their own way. We had the dish disheveled Sammy and the cleaned up Dean Smith going on in this episode. It was like you said, to get Charlie again so soon was a pleasant surprise. It was just visually done well with the montages and the scary stuff, and just I enjoyed it. It was a cute one.

LA: 34:43

What about the lore? Uh okay, we are going to be recycling another lore from season two, episode 20. It was What Is and What Should Never Be, and it's over Jinn again.

Berly: 34:58

There was a ton of shit about gens online. Oh, really? It was a lot. I decided to go with a single article from Inside Arabia called Jinn in Muslim Culture: Truth or Superstition. According to the article, in the broader Muslim world, people strongly believe in the existence of supernatural beings called Jinn because the Quran explicitly confirms their existence and considers them an independent nation. There is a whole chapter in the Quran. Hang on, I put a link. Quran. Oh yeah. Quran. Quran. Quran. So there's an entire chapter in the Quran named the Chapter of Jinn. Dj I N N, where detailed information about these beings is revealed. Like human beings, some of the Jinn may be righteous and benevolent, but others are sinners and evildoers. We learn from the Quran that Jinn may marry, procreate, live, and die. However, Muslims over the world believe that God created Jinn and humans for the purpose of inhabiting the earth and worshiping him. And the professor in the episode talks about some of this stuff. The word jinn is in fact reiterated on many occasions in the Quran in association with humans, attesting to the Islamic belief that jinn belong to another nation that exists parallel to humans in another dimension. Muslims believe that these transparent and invisible beings have tremendous powers and are not predetermined by the laws of physics such as matter, weight, time, and place. Unlike humans, they straddle the invisible and the manifest worlds and move across dimensional boundaries. They can also travel anywhere in the blink of an eye and metamorphose into the shape of other beings, such as cats, dogs, birds, serpents, or even other humans. Despite their powers, jinn can be called upon to serve human beings because according to Islamic belief, humans are superior to jinn. Jinn were created from smokeless fire, while humans were created from water and earth. The belief in jinn, demons, and ghosts is modern folk culture in the Muslim world, and Muslims believe that jinn are capable of possessing humans and inflicting su inflicting suffering upon them. The Prophet Muhammad has commanded his followers to perform many rituals and recite many prayers to protect themselves from the evil of jinn who permanently lurk around to harm people. Places like toilets, baths, garbage dumps, forests, abandoned houses, cemeteries, caves, mountains, and wherever there is uncleanliness are the djinn's favorite abodes and believed to be dangerous to human beings. There has been much anthropological uh anthropological You got it anthropological and ethnographic participant observation research done in the Arab world on the belief in jinn and the rituals accompanying this belief among different cultural and ethnic communities. Robert Lebling's Legends of the Fire Spirits, Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar, explores the world of jinns across the Islamic world and how geographic and regional specificities have shaped them within local cultures. The book provides an extraordinary account of how religion and folk tales have shaped Muslims' perceptions of the realm of Jinn. American ethnographer Vincent Krapazano. What? Okay. The ethnographic account, the Hama Hamid Shah, a study in the Moroccan Inthropsychiatry by Vincent Crapazzano, abounds with tales of Jinn saints and their Baraka. Which Baraka, isn't that a Mortal Kombat character?

LA: 39:39

Oh, I think you're right.

Berly: 39:40

I'm pretty sure it is.

LA: 39:41

Oh, I think you're right, yeah.

Berly: 39:44

So, um, okay, so these supernatural powers include like telepathic communication, instantaneous travel, cross-dimensional travel, and other paranormal phenomena. Building on feminology, psychoanalysis, and symbolism, Krapenzano delves into the rare rituals and psychology and beliefs of the Hamad Shada group to explore the concepts of reality, truth, superstition, and psychology in a thrilling ethnographic study. The belief in jinn, though it may seem hallucinatory or delusive to modern-day skeptics, is nurtured by religion and core religious texts such as the Quran and the Hadith. Rejecting the existence of jinn in Islam is forbidden, according to Muslim scholars and jurists, because it is considered apostasy. Okay, the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief. I learned a new word today. Those who deny the existence of jinn are also, oh hang on, those who deny the existence of jinn also deny the Quranic verses that confirm their existence. Whether the belief in jinn is true or superstition, the recognized existence of inexplicable paranormal phenomena throughout the world attests to the fact that there are indeed many things that are still beyond human understanding, despite the tremendous scientific leaps in the last two centuries. So, not so much about wish granting in here, but they do have a bunch of supernatural powers, which includes things like telepathy. So I guess if they could see what you're thinking and can force hallucinatory things, yeah, just like what we saw in the episode, it's not so much that they grant your wish as it is that they make you hallucinate that your wish came true. Right. Very interesting. Interesting. Quote to close it out is from Charlie. When they were after they walked out of the corridor's office, Charlie said, I'm sorry, I froze. I couldn't control alt-delete my way out. Real life role-playing is hard.

LA: 42:14

Cheers. Cheers.

Berly: 42:17

Thank you for listening to Denim Wrapped Nightmares.

LA: 42:20

Follow us on Twitter or Instagram, leave a review, and let us know how we can get involved in the fandom. This was fun. Jerk. It always is, bitch.