Slumber Party (9x4)

We're clicking our heels together three times and heading to Oz, baby, and it's not what you expected.

This week, Berly and LA dig into one of Season 9's most unexpected episodes: a full-on Wizard of Oz crossover that opens in black-and-white 1935 and goes completely off the rails from there. Dorothy Gale is real, she's a hunter, she's been trapped in a jar in the bunker for eighty years, and she has opinions about men. The Wicked Witch is also real, she's furious, and she is not going to let a little thing like being tongueless slow her down.

Charlie gets called in to help with a computer situation, ends up in the middle of all of it, and has what can only be described as a very big day. Dean's bedroom yields a crucial plot device. The bunker reveals a few surprises, including a garage (Baby is safe, everyone breathe), and Crowley, still chained up downstairs with his crayon, somehow manages to make himself useful.

LA also gets into the surprisingly rich real history of L. Frank Baum, and it genuinely makes the Supernatural version of him feel less far-fetched than it should. This one was a good time. LA called it as a favorite before the episode even finished.

Think fairy tale crossovers belong in Supernatural? Did you love this episode as much as LA did? Do you have theories about Ezekiel, strong opinions about those underwhelming ruby slippers, or a burning need to defend the slow-mo yellow brick road walk? Drop a comment and let us know... and if you're enjoying the show, please leave us a review! It genuinely helps us out and warms our little Winchester-loving hearts. 

Sources:

• https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Slumber_Party
• https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/09/dissecting-the-real-wizard-of-oz.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Oz_(character)
• https://wr.english.fsu.edu/College-Composition/Our-Own-Words-The-James-M.-McCrimmon-Award/Our-Own-Words-2005-2006-Edition/The-Wizard-of-Oz-More-Than-Just-a-Children-s-Story-by-Lauren-Houlberg

Transcript

Berly 0:01

Welcome to Denim 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.

Berly 0:17

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

LA 0:20

I'm LA, and I'm here along for the ride. Now let's get tipsy.

Berly 0:26

Hello, LA. Hey Burley. Really quickly, something I intended to do in our premiere, and I forgot. It's to give a quick shout-out to Charlotte Styles. She won our season eight giveaway, the tote bag and the zipper pouch.

LA 0:45

Oh, congratulations.

Berly 0:46

So thank you for listening, Charlotte. We hope you love your little tote bag. Take a picture of it and like tag us in it.

LA 0:54

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we want to see you wearing our gear. Well, in our last episode, uh, Castell was fumbling through humanity while Bart hired creeper reapers to hunt him down. Dean lied to literally everyone, and Ezekiel keeps being a whole secret situation inside of Sam. And thanks to April, the honey trap reaper, Cass got laid, murdered, and resurrected.

Berly 1:20

It was an eventful day, yeah.

LA 1:23

But just when the bunker family dream feels real, Zeke crashes the vibe and kicks Sass Sass out, kicks Cass out into the cold. It was an eventful episode. It was. So was today's. Yes. Oh, I'm I I liked today's.

Berly 1:40

I knew you would. I knew you would. I was like, this is gonna be one of LA's favorites at the end. Yeah. So today's episode is titled Slumber Party. It's the fourth episode of season nine and originally aired on October 29th, 2013. The episode starts out in 1935. Yeah, you see? It's all black and white. I love it. But it's not gangsters. It's the men of letters. It's these two dorky men of letters, and they have Henry's box. And so they're fondling the box at the beginning of the episode. They were all thumbs, you know? Just fondling that box away. And then they finally found it. The key, not what you were thinking of, Dirty Birdie.

LA 2:24

No, no.

Berly 2:26

They stuck, did you see how they stuck their hand up in the the lock is like up in? My hands aren't showing because of the zoom filter, but they like stuck it up in. Open the door and they come in, and we've got a more seasoned men of letters. And then we've got this younger, exuberant, so excited men of letters. And so I liked that comparison because it's kind of like Charlie and the Winchesters, right? Like she's oh my god, oh, everything's magical and whimsy. And the guy's like, calm down. Like, this is not that big of a deal. Settle down. So they're getting in here, looking around, settling into the place, and then somebody else comes walking in, dragging a body bag.

LA 3:11

Uh yeah.

Berly 3:12

She looks fabulous in her gear, her jacket, and her little pants just like puff out in all the right places and all that kind of stuff. And she's got the wicked witch of the west. This is Dorothy, and she is a hunter.

LA 3:26

I like that actress. And as soon as I saw her, I was like, whoa, who is that? I know that. But I was like, but she's a lot younger from whatever I watched her in. And then I realized it was Letter Kinney. Did you watch that? No. She yeah, she was in that. And um, there was something else I looked because I looked it up and I was like, Oh, she's been in quite a few things I watched. Uh, but I really like her. She did good in the role, too. Yeah, I could not pronounce her real name for the life of me. Um, but yeah. I don't I didn't look that up. I think it's I I think it's Native American.

Berly 3:57

Oh, okay. But she did she did well with being like, I'm feminist and fuck you men, but then really when kind of coming around, like, okay, I guess not all men suck. Like, because that characters like that can get annoying because they can seem like caricatures, but they balance. And I was like, she just did it, yeah.

LA 4:13

She did it, she wasn't too much about it.

Berly 4:15

Well, she, you know, her dad writing the book about her and just oh like oh I get it, you know, like all this kind of stuff. Totally, it was a believable character. I liked this interpretation of Dorothy.

LA 4:26

Me too.

Berly 4:26

It was very cute. So the two men are just like, okay, well, we gotta, we gotta do some research and figure out how to stop this witch. And so they take her out of the bag for some reason. I'm like, why'd y'all do that?

LA 4:38

Also, just to interrupt you on purpose. Uh I the older gentleman, the older man of letters is all, what a dump about the bunker. And I was like, How dare you? How dare you, sir? I love that place. And that like the young one's like, no, this place is amazing, it's wonderful. And then that's when it like cuts to like years later, and he the then the young one's all like, what a dump. Yeah. It's like, I don't like this. No, it's not even a dump all these years later.

Berly 5:12

It was cute. It was cute. So they try to figure out what to do with this witch. And Dorothy straight up said, like, I've decapitated her, I have melted her, I have burned her alive. I do not know how to kill this bitch. So let's figure some shit out. So they're researching, trying to figure out how to kill her. And then she's pulling an alpha vampire thing, cutting through her bonds with her nails. And what was her black around her mouth? Oh, yeah. And Dorothy cut out her tongue so that she couldn't fucking talk to her because she's like, she's annoying.

LA 5:43

Hissed.

Berly 5:43

She just hisses a lot and has green eyes a lot. So she gets out of her bones while they're trying to research and figure out what to do. And the young whimsical guy jumps up and comes running over and like puts his forehead right in her hand. He had a knife and leans forward with just his head. I was like, why'd you do that? But I guess she like sucked his head in or something, possesses him. So he goes and attacks the other guy. And Dorothy's like, Holy shit, do y'all have a lab? I need a lab. And the older guy is like, 218. So she goes running up to the lab and starts concocting something while possessed guy attacks older guy. And older guy is like, I know you're still in there. I think it was Haggerty. I know you're still in there. And he was like, nah-uh, not in here. So he took the knife and stabbed him and killed him. I know. And then, like, as he dies, he's like, Oh, you're right. Whimsy is awful, and this place sucks. Oh. And dies. And then the other guy goes running upstairs into the lab where Dorothy had concocted a spell. So she's like a hunter who knows witchcraft. It's a binding spell that put her and the witch in a jar together. So old guy goes upstairs and she's gone. And he's just like, oh my God, this is awful. Now, not all of that was the teaser at the beginning. It actually cut off way sooner than that to go supernatural. But you know how I am with my flashbacks. So, like, yes, let's just get all of 1935 out of the way here up at the front of the episode. I did like that they did them in black and white. Even though with their costumes and the characters, it would have been easy to know when we were flashing back and forth. I still appreciated that. Oh yeah. Kind of the little nod to Wizard of Oz, you know, with the black and white and the color and all of that kind of stuff. So very cute, very cute. But in modern times, we have Sam and Dean in the bunker. Dean is coming back from dropping off Kevin at a hotel so that he can get a little porn break. It was a lot of exposition. I was like, what? I guess they just want to explain that Kevin's not just hiding in his room. He is at the hotel watching porn, taking a vacation.

LA 7:49

But also working on the angel to working on the angel tapa.

Berly 7:52

Falafel. I was like, okay.

LA 7:55

Good to know. Good to know.

Berly 7:57

Good to know. Good job, Kevin. Still working away.

LA 8:02

You deserve that, Bright Lynn.

Berly 8:03

You do. Yeah, you do. Sam explains, okay, I've been thinking. And this table, when Kevin said it all lit up whenever the angels were following. So, like, maybe we can rig this to track angels so that we can start finding them. And I at first were thinking, why do y'all need to find the angels? But I guess they need to hunt them.

LA 8:22

Well, no, he was saying that uh each light when it lit up, it was like a cluster of angels that fell. And so he was saying that way they could keep casts away from the areas where the city is. You're right, you're right.

Berly 8:34

Yeah, he's like, I want to help out casts. And I love that he still was like, I still don't understand why he couldn't stay here. Like that was stupid.

LA 8:39

Yeah.

Berly 8:39

And Dima's like, he doesn't want to put us in danger from all the angels. Okay, so yeah, you're right. Yeah. So we want to track the angels so that we can help out Castell because they're still hunting his ass and he's still out there running around doing whatever. And then he explains that he followed the cord that goes through the floor to the second floor because the lab is now the computer room that is room 218. So I was like, what is the magical blueprint of this place?

LA 9:07

Well, also, I was like, you didn't know about that room before when you guys first got there? I would have been exploring the shit out of that place. I do love every nook and cranny.

Berly 9:16

I do love that we got to see so much more of it. Like we got to see the kitchen, and now there's a garage, and so now baby isn't just parked out front. That really bothered me. So I'm happy that that is not happening anymore, that they aren't just parking right outside of their secret lair. They have a guitar, or not a guitar, a garage to get into. But anyway, so they figure out okay, this is going to be too complicated. We need to get Charlie. But before they decide to call Charlie, Dean does like pop off the back of the computer so they can get a better look at it and bumps into this shelf of stuff that is from the old lab. And one of the things that's on the shelf is the jar that Dorothy and the wicked witch disappeared to, and it gets knocked over. And I don't know, that effect was kind of cool. Like it kind of started looking like smoke and like, yeah, like it was getting activated, and then the cork got popped out and then it started leaking out. I thought that was fun. Yeah. So they are like, we gotta get some help. Well, who, of course, are they going to contact for assistance, for technical assistance? They need some smarty pants. They needed some technical smarty pants. They call in good old Charlie. And I think it is so cute that she comes in and is like, oh my God, so I lost my job and I've been focusing on my hobbies like macrome and LARPing and oh yeah, hunting. They had her in a flannel, and I can't remember if she had this on last time either, but it's like she looks like them in how she's dressed, but where they wear like the muted toned-down colors, hers are just like bright and cheery and the graphic tea. And so I thought it was very cute that it's like she's kind of in the hunter gear, but not her version. Her version, yeah. Very cute. So after they scold her a little bit that hunting by herself is dangerous and she should not be doing that, and her kind of explaining, you know, it's not as exciting as I thought it would be anyway. But let's go look at this computer. She gets in there and we get a little bit of a montage of her going through the stuff. Not really a montage, but just kind of they're working.

LA 11:22

Watching her work.

Berly 11:22

We know they're working. And it shows her with like 40 things plugged into like this adapter thing. And then this one plug goes into her touch screen, and we get our uh product placement moment.

LA 11:37

Uh yeah.

Berly 11:38

Where she goes, Look at this touch screen. Isn't this cool? Sliding through all the apps for no reason, and then going to the home screen. I'm like, bring back product placement. Bring it back. You know, we don't need to have three minutes of uh commercials. Bring back product placement. So she explains, we're all set up. Like everything that you need to download from the system will be able to be downloaded and looked at through here. And I was like, wait a minute, what happened to tracking the angels? Why do we need to download every file in the middle of Letter's Bunker system? I thought we were just trying to track the angels. Focus here.

LA 12:20

Focus on one thing at a time.

Berly 12:22

But anyway, it's gonna take a very long time for all of these files to download. So let's go watch the first season of Game of Thrones. And in the meantime, the concoction that got spilt out has like grown up the wall and formed like these isopods. Is that that what they're called? Cocoons or whatever. I don't know. Which again, very cool.

LA 12:42

They're kind of fuzzy.

Berly 12:43

Yeah, very cool. They they looked very cool. Yeah, and the noises, but the noises that they made when they cut them open, I expected Dorothy to be slimy when she came out, and she was not.

LA 12:52

Yeah, well, and when Dean just looked bare handed started like going at it, I was like, I think I would have gotten some gloves.

Berly 12:58

We've seen these guys touch blood before with their bare hands, though, and been like, oh, true, true. I mean, you know, safety first, you know. Now they're Winchesters. So after they've gone back in there to check on the files, found the cocoons, cut Dorothy out of her cocoon. She explains how she had bound herself to the witch and that if she was free, the witch is free. And sure enough, there's another cocoon that's already empty. She cut herself out again with her fingernail. Yeah, I didn't think about that. You're probably right. Sam and Dean say, okay, we're gonna go look around, see if we can't find her. You stay in here with Charlie, see if y'all can't find anything in the minute letters files that have downloaded or whatever to try and hunt down this witch. And Charlie explains to Dorothy, whenever she's kind of being like, oh, fuck these guys, fuck them in. She's like, um, excuse me, that older gentleman, he left your file open the entire time you were gone. Like he worked on it every single day, trying to figure out how to get you back here. And what he figured out is that poppy seeds will fuck up the witch. So he actually managed to get some poppy seeds from Oz, which is part of the fairy realm, by the way. Just for you to know. Charlie and her fairies. Do you think she's gonna run into her fairy girlfriend and uh in Oz? Oh, maybe. Oh, that would be fun. But that's whenever Dorothy kind of starts to be like, oh, okay. Like, I guess not all men suck. These men just called you the smartest person in the room and respect you. And it turns out that man respected me too and was trying to help. Like, okay, so not all men suck.

LA 14:33

Did we already see the part where he called uh Dean was like, that's my girl when Charlie, like it was one of the times she did something, and I was like, Oh, you could tell she was like oh, so touched. I don't remember when that happened. I don't either, but I remember thinking, oh my god.

Berly 14:49

Let me go back and read and see if I've missed anything.

LA 14:52

Those two.

Berly 14:53

Actually, maybe it was with the poppy seed thing when they came back and she explained it to him. Oh yeah, it was. Maybe, yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was. Oops, I gotta have us. So while they're having this conversation, the wicked witch goes to visit Crowley, who is, of course, still in the dungeon. And earlier in the episode, Sam brought Crowley a piece of paper and a crayon.

LA 15:14

The dramatic way he opened those doors, I was like, oh, hey, there's Sam. Both doors open and he's just standing there as a silhouette with a light behind him. I was like, oh, hey, there's Sam.

Berly 15:28

He was really excited to give him that crayon.

LA 15:30

Yeah, he was.

Berly 15:32

Try to John Wick me on this. You know, it's a crayola. Why did he give him the crayon again? What did he want?

LA 15:40

He wants him to name uh names of the angels, right? Or demons names.

Berly 15:43

Oh, demons. He wants more names. He wants more demon names. That's right. That's their that's their that's their uh pact, is that Kevin will beat Crowley in exchange for demon names, right? I think so. They're like, we'll give you stuff you if you give us stuff. Um well the witch goes down there and finds Crowley, and he's just like, Oh, you poor thing. She doesn't have her tongue. She can't go in the devil's trap. I thought that was an interesting touch.

LA 16:13

Yeah, yeah.

Berly 16:15

But he wads up the crayon in a piece of paper and was like, Here, you know, tell tell me what you want so daddy can help. And I was like, Ooh. Ooh. Well, she tells Crowley she's looking for a key. And because Crowley doesn't want her to like turn on him, he just tells her, Oh, it's in the kitchen. So he tells Sam and Dean this. He's like whistling and was like, Oh, didn't y'all see wicked? What the fuck? Don't you understand? She's oh my god, she's more complicated, okay, guys.

LA 16:41

Whatever that that wicked reference, I forget how he said it, but I like it cracked me up.

Berly 16:46

At the end of the episode, he was like, Hey, I helped y'all out with defying gravity there, okay? That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Help me out. And so they like they unchain him so that he can stretch his legs and walk around within the devil's trap. They took off his his collar, his choke collar. So they go up to the kitchen, and sure enough, it's been thrashed. And I'm just like, oh my god, look at the kitchen. It was a big kitchen, so big. They had so much storage in there. And I'm like, I want to get a better look at the appliances.

LA 17:17

Right? I don't understand. Sam, I mean, I understand Sam's reasoning for not like moving in just yet, but I'd be all for it.

Berly 17:24

Oh, well, I mean, obviously, that is his mental state of he doesn't ever feel like he can settle in somewhere. It's not so much a critique of the bunker as it is he doesn't feel safe still. Which, how sad is that that you're in a place that's worded against every entity, hidden from every map, like all of these things, and you still don't feel safe. Oh, that breaks my heart.

LA 17:48

Well that, and it's like, when's the other shoe gonna drop? They're gonna lose this place. Like, why bother?

Berly 17:52

Exactly. Like, what oh that that whole thing broke my heart. It really did. But at the same time, it makes sense that Sam would feel that way, especially whenever he talked to Dean at the end and was like, I don't remember feeling safe and having a home with mom and dad like you do. I've never experienced that. So I'm not gonna suddenly feel that way now, you know? Yeah. Oh, heartbreaking though. So they all meet up in the kitchen, and that's when Charlie tells him, Oh my god, we figured out the poppy seed thing, and I made poppy bullets. So we each get one because there wasn't like an endless supply here. So make sure that your shot counts. And yeah, that's whenever he was like, That's my girl. Mm-hmm. Between between Crowley calling himself like the whole let daddy help and Dean, like that, that's my girl. It's like, oh my goodness. I know. We got some sound bites in here. Maybe I need to update some notification sounds on my phone.

LA 18:47

Yeah, I'll take that. That's my girl. Right.

Berly 18:52

So they figure out, okay, Crowley said she's looking for a key. Like, what would this key be? And Dorothy was like, Oh, girl, there is a key that will open any door, turn any door into a portal to Oz. So that's what she's looking for. And Dean's like, what's it look like? And Dorothy pulls out her handy Daniel, handy dandy hunter's journal, which I loved that. I loved that little touch. Like she's truly a hunter, pulls out her hunter's journal, flips to the page, shows the page where she drew a sketch. And Dean's like, motherfucker, I remember that when we first moved in and I was going through all the inventory. I remember it. And they're like, where is it? And he goes, In my room. Why did you store that in your room? Y'all have a whole archive storage down there in the basement with Crowley. What was it about that key that made you go, I'm gonna keep this little knick-knack in my room?

LA 19:41

It's just mixed in with his porn, I guess. The porn that he found.

Berly 19:45

So funny when they were in there, and Charlie was like, So you have your porn meticulous meticulously cataloged and stored, but everything else we're just having to dig through everything and hope to find it.

LA 19:56

Yeah.

Berly 19:56

And him, don't judge me. Leave me alone. Well, they find the key in their room. But unfortunately, while Dorothy and Sam are looking around, the witch comes out to play again. She goes into Dean's bedroom and just flings him against the wall and then goes to zap him, and Charlie dives in front of it, and she gets zapped instead. Sam had heard that him and Dorothy had split up to try and cover more ground to try and find the witch. So Sam, I guess, was closer to Dean's bedroom. He hears them yelling, he goes running in. I loved the entrance. How as he was coming around the corner and was like saying Dean's name, and Dean goes, Zeke, like knows immediately I need Zeke, and the the change, the immediate standing up straight, immediately turning from the hunter on the prowl to the that was cool. And the eyes, the eyes did the blue thing still. So Zeke comes in and is just like seriously, bitch. I am barely recovering from your last friend who I re resurrected from the dead. And now you need me to resurrect this one. Like she's gone. So either I can help you with this powerful witch, or I can bring back your friend. I can't do both. And by the way, the more you use me, the longer it's gonna take me to heal, which means I'm not going to be leaving Sam as quickly as we would have liked. As quickly, I thought it was interesting he said as quickly as either of us would have liked. I did that, think that was an interesting thing that it kind of caught my brain. Like, oh, so he's not happy. He's not trying to stay up in there. Or is this just a front? I don't know. I kind of like having him around.

LA 21:32

He's pretty handy.

Berly 21:33

He's been kind of handy, but people keep saying things and comments on social that make me think he's gonna do something bad. Like it's something bad's gonna happen. No, see. People have said he's gonna break our hearts and like all this other kind of stuff. And I'm just like, what is he gonna do?

LA 21:52

I could have gone without you telling me that.

Berly 21:54

I'm sorry. I can't always be the one with the burden of knowledge.

LA 22:01

All right.

Berly 22:02

Well, anyway, Zeke goes and wakes up Charlie and she just shoots up and is like, Merry Christmas. And at first I was like, what the fuck? But then she explains why she said that in a minute. Dorothy pops in around the corner and says that the witch may have been stunned by the poppy seed, but she is definitely still alive. She is still floating around in there. Sam and Dean say, Okay, you stay here with Charlie until she recovers and can get back on her feet. We're gonna go see if we can't find her. So that's when Dorothy sits down and Charlie starts telling her about this fantastic dream that she had, that it was really weird and she was it was Christmas and both her parents were there and it was wonderful. And Charlie was like, No, that wasn't a dream. You were dead. If you got zapped by the witch, you were dead. There's no if, ands, or buts about it, and you were in heaven. That's what that was. And Charlie's just like, holy shit, handles it really well.

LA 22:55

Yeah. Just like, oh, okay. I would have had so many questions.

Berly 23:00

I would immediately, which she does end up asking about them toward the end of the episode, and like, I get it, priorities, but I would have immediately been like, What the fuck? How am I here then? Who had a defibrillator? I don't understand what happened here. Like, but nope, nope, she saves her questions until the end, like a good little guest star.

LA 23:21

Did they ever explain how because so Dorothy bound herself to the witch, right? Mm-hmm. So if the witch dies, wouldn't Dorothy die? Or do they ever explain that, or is that just me?

Berly 23:32

I guess I guess the spell got broken when the cork got popped.

LA 23:36

Oh, okay.

Berly 23:37

There you go. That's my assumption. Because whenever they came out, if they were still bound, you would have thought that they would have been in the same cocoon. And they weren't, they were in two separate cocoons. So I think that that broke the spell. Gotcha.

LA 23:49

That's my theory anyway. Okay. Sounds good.

Berly 23:53

So Charlie and Dorothy are talking, and Dorothy's still bitching about her dad and the books and just all these lame men. And then Charlie finally says, wait a minute, bitch. Okay. He wrote those books clearly for you, not to just be about you, not to just cope with what happened to you. He has all these hints in there if you actually read them, like the poppy seeds, for example, letting us know that the poppies were going to be something magical, something that would be useful to us. So how about you stow your shit and start thinking if there's anything else in the book that could be relevant here that could help us out? And then Charlie said, preferably something with a pointy end. And Dorothy goes, Oh my God. I know just the thing. Hopefully these guys still kept it. I think she said douchebags or something. No, she didn't say douchebags, but she said something where yet again she's jabbing at the men of letters. I think she called them dusty at some point. Like she was not a fan of the men of the letters. Which it seems like the men of letters were not fans of Hunters either, with how Henry Winchester was talking about hunters and being disappointed that his legacies were hunters and all of that. So it's consistent, I guess, with the lore that we've been taught about men of letters versus hunters and that they kind of didn't like each other. So Dorothy's like, we gotta get to the garage. And Charlie and LA and Burley were all like, There's a garage. Yeah. That was really exciting. So they go into the garage, and our picture car guy put in work because there were like what, four, four cars in there?

LA 25:31

I think so.

Berly 25:31

From like the 30s and 40s, I think. I'm not a car person. I don't know. In pristine condition, they looked fucking good. I don't know if they run, but they looked amazing over there. And then they had some old school motorcycles and stuff too. And sure enough, they had Dorothy's motorcycle. How cool was Dorothy's bike? I know. That was so cool. She's a badass. She was she was really cool. I really enjoyed this character. And I thought it was hilarious how they had her go over. She explained to Charlie earlier in the episode that when she thought that like all this stuff was cool and she wanted to be a part of it, she kind of stowed away in her dad's car in his trunk and got out in Oz and got lost there and met up with three free freedom fighters, and they all convinced her it was her destiny to stop the witch and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the three freedom fighters got turned into the lion, the scarecrow, and the tin man. So I thought it was hilarious when they go fight her motorcycle. And she opens her motorcycle bag and pulls out the tin man's head. And it's just like, yeah, he didn't make it. I was like, what? Oh my god. Yikes, okay. I'm like, why did you keep his head?

LA 26:43

Yeah, that's true.

Berly 26:45

Like our girl Dorothy, she's a little weird. Maybe she thought she could regenerate him at some point. I don't know. I don't know, but I got a kick out of that. I thought that was hilarious. What? But we move right past it and we never revisit it.

LA 27:02

Like just he's gone. But the head remains.

Berly 27:06

The head remains. Well, then she pulls out these two red pumps. And I was a little underwhelmed with the shoes. If these are supposed to be from a fairy land, they just looked like patent leather heels to me. Yeah. I wish they had made done a little something more. Maybe they were short on time. I don't know. But the shoes, I I would I wish they were a little fancier looking.

LA 27:28

Yeah, well, they could have thrown some glitter in it.

Berly 27:29

Glitter something. Something. Or made them silver, like from the books. Mm-hmm. I was underwhelmed with the shoes. Yeah.

LA 27:39

But I liked the the idea and the concept of of the what they do with them and everything.

Berly 27:43

Exactly. Yeah, I loved that. I loved that. I just wish the prop master had been given either more time or mud more budget or whatever that they had needed to do something cooler with those. Yeah. Because when she pulled them out, I was like, I kind of figured that's what she was going for was the shoes. Um, and so I was like waiting for it, and then she pulled them out, and I was like, oh. You know, it was kind of underwhelming. But anyway, they get the shoes and they're like, fuck yeah, this is going to be cool. Well, unfortunately, in the meantime, Sam and Dean did find the witch, and she possessed them just like she did our boy at the beginning. Hang on, what were their names? I got them down here somewhere. Yeah. Haggerty and Jenkins. So Haggerty, Haggerty is the young one who was so full of whimsy and delight and then died thinking whimsy was awful, which is oh no. And then uh Jenkins was the older man who kept the file open and was trying to save Dorothy until he retired. Once he retired, he was like, sorry. Sorry, Dorothy.

LA 28:41

Sorry about that. I am out, relaxing.

Berly 28:46

It's retirement time. Well, anyway, Sam and Dean get possessed just like Haggerty did. And so they're using the witch's voice. And they are just like, oh my god, let's go kill those bitches. And they find them in the garage that they didn't know existed, but there there they were. They found them. I don't know how that witch knew there was a garage. We didn't know. Clearly, she explored the place more than they did. Yeah. And then for some reason, whenever the guys get down there to attack them, Dorothy and uh Charlie each had a heel. Dorothy throws the other heel to Charlie and it's like, you go take care of the witch. And for whatever reason, Sam and Dean both just stand there staring at Dory, Dorothy, and they let Charlie run right past them and get out of the garage. You would think one of them would have turned around and gone after Charlie, but no. But I assume it's just because the witch is that pissed off at Dorothy. Let's go with that.

LA 29:39

Yeah, there you go.

Berly 29:40

We'll go with that. They were possessed by the witch, and the witch was just that mad at Dorothy that she was like, I'm gonna fuck this bitch up. Because they do tell her, like, uh, the witch can't hurt you because of your charm, but these two hot guys can. They can beat the shit out of you. So that's what we'll go with. She got over enthusiastic about having being able to actually hurt Dorothy. So Charlie goes running off. Oh, before Charlie went running off, Dean grabbed her and slammed her into a glass, a giant glass pane window. What was that down there? What was that? Was it like a display case?

LA 30:13

I guess I need to I gotta rewatch that. I don't know.

Berly 30:15

I did. Maybe I rewound it and looked at it and I couldn't figure out what it was. Hmm. Well, moving on. Charlie goes and finds the witch, who is okay. I related very much to the witch because A, she got to the top of the stairs and was clearly out of breath. Oh my god, I was gonna talk about that too. I was like, man, she sounds like me when I try to go up the stairs. I was like, same girl, same. Like, I feel you. I feel you. Right. And then she got up there and she started putting together her spell and everything. And let's be frank, she just seemed very confused the way she was looking around and doing all of this. She just seemed very confused to me. And again, same girl, same. You know? And when she opened the door and saw her monkeys, that cackle she let out, yeah, like same girl, same. So I was just like, okay. But Dan Sam and Dean down there up in the garage had informed Charlie and Dorothy that, oh, I'm not trying to get to Oz. No, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna bring my army here. So that's why when the door opened, she just stood there being like waiting for her army to come to her. It's not because it was just a green screen. Well, Charlie gets up to the top of the stairs, and our girl is in shape because she is not out of breath. She gets to the top of the stairs quietly and just right in the back of the head. Yeah. Like that must have been a very well-made shoe, on top of it having magic from Oz. Stabs her in the back of the head. So the witch turns around and is just like, what the fuck? And then Charlie's like, Yeah, you know, see ya, and and goes right in the face with the other shoe.

LA 32:02

She just tells her to heal.

Berly 32:04

I was like, okay, come on. Hey, you let Charlie have her magical moment, okay? She's been talking about Tolkien and Wizard of Oz and all this stuff, and where's my magical thing? She got to have her her her line, her cheesy line as she killed as she killed a witch. Good for her. So she knocks the witch in there and shuts the door just in time before the monkeys can get in and turns the key again, so it turns back just into a regular old door. So we're good. We did it. Everybody goes down to the garage, and this is when uh well they first they moved the baby into the garage. So I'm assuming they went out and figured out how to get to this tunnel where this entrance is and get baby in there. So it's been some time. Charlie pulls Dean aside as like, hey, okay, now that the witch is dead, like I need to talk to you. Yo, man, I died. How explain how I'm standing here talking to you right now? And Dean just says, Don't worry about it. Oh, okay. Charlie goes, Okay. I mean, I'm gonna ask you again later, but okay.

LA 33:10

I'd say, no, no, no, no. I need answers.

Berly 33:13

She was like, uh, am I gonna need to eat people? He said no, and that was good enough for Charlie. Right.

LA 33:19

She's like, okay, well, we'll talk later.

Berly 33:22

Right. Well, then Dorothy says, Well, I gotta get my ass back to Oz. I need to go find my dog. If I don't, if I uh I gotta at least find its head, you know? Like, I gotta at least find that and keep it with me.

LA 33:37

My god. Didn't she say she has like a revolution to get back to or something?

Berly 33:42

Because the the wizard, she said the wizard is a douchebag. That's that's who it was that she was bitching about was the wizard that he's like not a good guy and all this other kind of stuff. And yeah, she's gotta go back and lead this revolution. And she did make the joke to Charlie about like, come help me find my dog. I guess that was a euphemism for sex. What you don't think they're gonna hook up in Oz? I think they're gonna hook up.

LA 34:02

Oh, those two. Oh, oh maybe.

Berly 34:03

Oh, yeah, I could see that. If Charlie doesn't find her fairy.

LA 34:06

Well, maybe they all get together.

Berly 34:09

Good for her, good for Charlie. Here's your adventure, you know?

LA 34:13

Yeah, I mean, good for her.

Berly 34:15

Yeah.

LA 34:15

She's probably like really thankful they called her for that computer work. Right.

Berly 34:19

Which who knows? I still don't know if she made it where it could track angels or not. Yeah, I guess. We don't know. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, Dorothy is like, hey, aren't you coming with me? You said you wanted adventure. You said you wanted uh like go on a quest, you know, come with me. And Charlie just goes, Yeah, okay. And Sam and Dean, they let her. They let her go. So Dorothy uses the magic key in the garage door, and it opens up to the yellow brick road, and you can see Oz in the background. And I don't I just wish they had had them do something else other than this really slow walk on the yellow brick road. Well, like what? I don't know, like have Charlie like pointing out stuff and like being excited, maybe. Or like again, I understand why they did it logistics-wise, but it did take me out of it. Like, this is very obviously a green screen, and they don't have a very long runway here, so they are just doing these tiny baby steps very slowly on the yellow brick road. And like for the length of time that they had them do it, I'm like, did y'all just do it so that this needle drop was worth the money you had to pay to get it? It was a great needle drop. Yeah. But like they could have shut those doors a lot sooner rather than just showing them slow-mo walking, showing Sam and Dean, watching them slow-mo walking, cutting back to them slow-mo walking again. Eh. I could have I could have done without that. It looked really good when they opened the door and they first started walking out, but then it just kind of dragged on just a little bit there for me. Anyway, they shut the door, say good luck, Charlie, and then Sam finally says something about, you know, yeah, okay, I guess our home is cool.

LA 36:04

Oh yeah. I guess it's because no place like home.

Berly 36:07

Yeah. I guess it's okay. This was written by Robbie Thompson and directed by Robert Singer. There were a lot of transitions, like the mixed type transitions, where like one scene fades into another or fades out of another in this. And I was trying to figure out is that like an homage to like old 1930s media? Was that a common transition back then?

LA 36:35

I don't know.

Berly 36:36

I was kind of I did notice that a lot in this episode, and they do that transition a bit, don't get me wrong, but it just seemed very obvious in the transitions in this episode. So I was kind of curious about that. But it was cute. It was cute. Yeah, I thought it was really cute. There was no gore, really. No. I mean, even though we saw somebody get a heel in the back of their head, there was no like blood splatter or anything like that. So, not not a gory episode. What did you adore about this episode?

LA 37:05

Well, I loved I loved getting to see the men of letters. I loved a lot. I adored a lot. That and then just the storyline intermixing with the the Wizard of Oz and all that. And then, of course, Charlie.

Berly 37:18

Yeah, it was fun to see Charlie. And like I said, that added, I don't know if it's new. I'm like really trying to think back to when she had her gun in the gun range if she had on the flannel shirt then too. Because I think she did. I think she did too, yeah. Yeah. So I just I think I just didn't put it together in the last episode that we saw her in, where she had that that, oh, like she's dressed like a hunter, just Charlie's version of a hunter. Yeah. And in this episode, it registered. So it was cute seeing her, um, and kind of hearing her talk more about the Carver Edland books. That was fun. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, that she's researching those and that she was wanting, you know, to feel like she was accomplishing something as a hunter. And, you know, all that was very cute to kind of hear more about Charlie and her journey into becoming a hunter. And it was very cool to get to see more of the bunker.

LA 38:07

Yeah.

Berly 38:07

Oh, yeah. That was nice to see. Like we saw when there was a part where they showed a sink in the kitchen, and I was like, oh, that's where Sam spit out blood that one time. Because I I don't remember knowing where he was. But then they cut into the map room and there was the zinc. And I was like, no, that's where he spit the blood out. I'm my my point is I still don't understand the blueprint of this place.

LA 38:30

Yeah, yeah.

Berly 38:31

Like, I don't understand that computer room. You would have thought that would have been like in the basement area, but no, it's on the second floor. Unless they number the rooms really weird in this place, and 218 does not mean second floor.

LA 38:43

I don't know.

Berly 38:43

And why did the lab get turned into a giant computer? What's the story behind that? Definitely like three different ideas for our American horror stories spin-off, you know? Oh, yeah. Seeing Dorothy's background, seeing more of like this Jenkins and Haggerty guy, why is the lab a computer room now? Mm-hmm. Bunch of fun stuff. Well, what about the lore?

LA 39:09

Well, with L. Frank Baum reimagined as a man of letters and Dorothy as his Hardened Hunter daughter, we couldn't help but wonder how much of the real Wizard of Oz story was inspired by actual people. Turns out more than we expected. Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, and it became a massive success. The story of orphaned Dorothy Gale, swept up by a tornado from Grey, Kansas to the magical land of Oz, captured hearts at a time when America itself was buzzing with invention and change. Baum hit Baum. Baum. Baum Baum Bomb Bum. Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bum. That's yeah, you're see, you're good. Baum himself was a fascinating character, a dreamer, a salesman, and impresario, endlessly fascinated by illusion and spectacle. He once edited a trade journal teaching store owners how to lure customers with elaborate window displays, which, when you think about it, is basically the wizard's entire job description.

Berly 40:12

Don't look behind that curtain.

LA 40:14

Yeah. Speaking of which, the great and powerful fraud behind the curtain appears to have some genuine real-world inspiration. Scholars suggest Baum may have drawn elements of the character from Washington Harrison Donaldson, a balloonist and stage magician who worked for P. T. Barnum and famously vanished during a balloon ascent near Chicago in 1875. A showman who disappeared into the sky and ended up ruling a magical kingdom, it practically writes itself. The wizard is also said to have been partly inspired by Thomas Edison, whom Baum whom Baum Baum himself called the Wizard, echoing Edison's popular nickname, The Wizard of Menlo Park. Never heard it.

Berly 41:00

Never heard of this Harrison, um, what is it? Washington Harrison Donaldson disappearing into the sky and never to being seen again.

LA 41:08

Never heard that either.

Berly 41:09

Like damn.

LA 41:11

Well, as for Dorothy, she owes a lot to the real women in Baum's life. Baum was deeply shaped by his wife Maud and her mother Matilda, a prominent feminist who collaborated with Susan B. Anthony, which explains why Dorothy is no passive damsel waiting to be rescued. She's the one who gets things done. And the Wicked Witch fits right into the picture too. All of Oz's most powerful figures are women, the good witches and the wicked witches alike, and Baum's mother-in-law had actually promoted the idea that many historical witches were simply free-thinking women who were ahead of their time. So while Baum always insisted he was just writing a children's fairy tale, the DNA of Oz is woven through with real inventors, real showmen, and real women who were anything but fictional. The supernatural version of Baum as a secret keeper of dangerous lore isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.

Berly 42:05

I've never read the actual book, have you? I know, me neither, yeah. It's making me kind of want to. This episode and this lore is making me want to. Yeah. Quote to close it out, when Charlie was talking about finding more of Edlin's work, some of the unpublished stuff, and that she thought it was fanfic at first. Sam asked who uploaded it, and Charlie said, I don't know. Their screen name was Becky Winchester167. Ring a bell. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you for listening to Denim Wrapped Nightmares.

LA 42:40

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