So, for once, I actually have a neat story to relate about this episode. Linda Blair is well-known as Reagan McNeill from the original Exorcist and, well, that comes with a certain typecasting to it. She was apparently someone Eric Kripke, the series creator, had wanted for a while and an episode had been written specifically for her. When Linda Blair requested that no demons be involved in the script, the writing team fulfilled her request before officially pitching it to her, much to her surprise.
And so, we have the second episode of seven episodes written by staff writer Cathyrn Humphris, who penned Dead Man's Blood in season one. How does it hold up in what has been a pretty overall alright Season 2? Let's have a look!
Our episode begins with - surprise, surprise - a recap. This time, we're focused on the various credit card scams that Sam and Dean run in order to fake having money for their needs as well as Dean's most unfortunate double trouble from back in Season 1.
Gee, I wonder if the boys will be getting into legal troub-ahhhh, there's Linda Blair with a SWAT team ready to take Sam into custody. Much of the beginning of the episode is told in media res with Sam and Dean both in police custody and under interrogation. Dean is, once again, up for murder - this time of a woman named Karen, whose husband had recently died to what was believed to be a spirit by the boys. Sam relates the details of them traveling about, a few references to various bits of the lore such as Sam having been a law student and Jessica Moore roasting on the ceiling of his apartment.
Of course, when I say details...Sam relates things such as having seen the world's second largest ball of twine with his brother. Gotta protect the Masquerade, after all.
Linda Blair plays Detective Diana Ballard, a no-nonsense cop who is trying to get to the truth of the matter. She will...in more than one way.
In their investigating, Sam and Dean uncover the phrase "Dana Schulps" being communicated by some kind of spirit, who they can't find a record of a person by that name ever existing. We get some good scenes of Dean screwing with his interrogator as well as exasperating his court-appointed public defender, seemingly not at all worried that he might be up for murder charges as he attempts to figure out what Dana Schulps means.
Diana, meanwhile, writers a report and suddenly her computer starts typing "Dana Schulps" over and over and over again.
As the public defender tries to sit in with Sam, the reveal comes that Dean...has chosen to confess! This leads to what is probably one of the most iconic scenes in the entire show as Dean treats the thing like a dating service video...and then proceeds to reveal the truth of the supernatural world to Diana and Diana's partner Peter as well as the department. He mentions vengeful spirits and how this spirit seems to be trying to communicate. However, a spirit sometimes can't make an exact one to one translation - hence the anagram. Peter accuses him of the murders, including the one in St. Louis, and Dean's cheeky deflections get him assaulted for his trouble.
Sam has used the opportunity to escape, leaving behind a reference to The Great Escape on a notepad for Diana and Peter to find. Like the diva that he is!
Diana heads to the bathroom, where the faucets turn themselves on and the ghost girl appears to her after scrawling the message "Dana Schulps" onto the steamed up mirror...meaning that she probably doesn't have much time left given the ghost's involvement with Karen and her husband. Diana comes to Dean, who manages to work out what she's seen. He gives up Sam to her, imploring her to go to him for help: especially in light of the recent two deaths.
Sam and Diana work out a few details: namely that there is an address on Ashland that the ghost, Claire Becker, was last seen at. She was apparently a heroin dealer who disappeared without a trace when the police went to investigate the building she'd walked into. The building? Ashland Supplies, where Sam and Diana find her bones. Sam finds it odd that Claire would lead them to her bones, but he realizes that she's not a vengeful spirit, but a death omen. Claire was trying to warn Karen and her husband before her about their oncoming deaths and now she's appearing to Diana.
With this, they are able to work out the real bad guy here - namely Pete apparently stole heroin from lockup, had Claire sell it, and Karen's husband fronted the cash and Karen likely knew about it as well. Indeed, when Sam and Diana finally catch up to him, Pete says as much just before trying to sell her on pinning everything on Dean and calling it a day. The spirit of Claire appears again to distract Pete and Diana shoots him through the chest.
Following all this, Diana tells Sam and Dean that she can probably get the murder case on Dean here in Baltimore dropped due to Pete's confession. Unfortunately, the murder charge in St. Louis she can't help them with. However, she does turn her back and suggests that they make a break for it. The boys take her up on it, a bit of ADR'd dialogue from Sam and Dean suggesting that Dean is suddenly in the mood for some pea soup, ending the episode.
The Usual Suspects gets its title from the 1995 film of the same name. The name, obviously, refers to Sam and Dean being interrogated about events having already happened and lying their way through it all...for the most part, anyway. Rather than getting away scot-free with the Detective only putting the pieces together after the fact, they team up with her to bring a killer to justice.
And it makes a pretty good Supernatural episode. It takes the ghost formula, but does it in a different way from how episodes have done it before - namely the ghost is actually a good influence instead of being the antagonist of the episode as we just saw with No Exit. We have, again, what is probably one of the most iconic scenes for the character of Dean Winchester if not the entire show with the "confession". We also get a really good performance from Linda Blair, going from a no-nonsense cop who doesn't believe Dean about the supernatural to someone who is a believer...and who will sleep better at night knowing that Sam and Dean are out there doing what they do.
Next time, we get back to what Linda Blair wished to avoid - demons. It's time to reach into a bit of lore from my neck of the woods, namely the Deep South. I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Crossroad Blues is up next! Be there!
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