From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: Roadkill"

"You got any games on your phone?"
"It's 2006."
". . .aww, man!"

I'm just saying. It's not a good title. It's just not.

We get a montage of a few ghost episodes, coupled with Sam and Dean butting heads on hunter philosophy from back in Bloodlust.

After the recap, a couple - Molly and David - appear to be lost on a back road and are apparently lost. They bicker a bit, Molly even calling it somewhat archaic, and they end up reconciling just before Molly has to swerve to avoid a man in the road. The car crashes and, once it does, Molly finds herself alone. She calls out for David but, besides the passenger side door being left open, there's no sign of him.

She gets out, calling out to him, but finds only a creepy cabin in the woods around her. Heading inside, she meets her host - the man from the road, who apparently is very, very dead...his guts exposed and blood pouring from his mouth, his face contorting into some twisted, skeletal view.

Molly flees into the woods, eventually finding the road again and a familiar '67 Impala driving up and almost hitting her. She begs Sam and Dean for help. The two stop and listen to her story, asking her for details about it. While Sam insists on taking her back to town, she's adamant that she has to look for David. They eventually agree to take her back to the site of the car crash...but find no car. It's gone, as though it had never been. She's convinced that something is up, Sam and Dean mentioning someone named "Greely" might be coming soon just as Molly gets out of earshot and Sam telling Dean that they'll have to tell her "the truth".

I don't have a joke here, this is just really cool.

Molly eventually agrees to go with Sam and Dean to the police station. She relates the details leading up to the crash, regretting what happened leading up to the crash and how the last thing she said to her husband was calling her a jerk. The radio turns on by itself and "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals plays...the same song having played right before the crash. A man's voice is heard through the static, proclaiming "She's mine! She's mine!".

The man appears on the road and Dean drives right through him, causing him to disappear and revealing him to be a ghost. After doing this, unfortunately, the Impala goes dead. The ghost doesn't want them to leave...

Molly gets a look at the Impala's trunk and decides she's getting the hell out of dodge. Sam and Dean talk her down, explaining that they're hunting for ghosts. . .and Molly isn't really able to refute it, because of what she had just seen. Sam tells her the man's name is Jonah Greely, a man who died fifteen years ago. One night a year, on the anniversary of his death, he haunts the road and finds someone to punish for his death. Despite her plan to leave, Sam and Dean don't believe Greely will let her leave this highway.

She agrees to help the boys out, taking them to the creepy cabin in the woods. No clean sign of a body means they don't have anything to salt and burn. Dean sticks to the mission, saying that they only have until sunrise to wrap this up...which we'll get back to. As they head out, Molly gets grabbed by Greely and Dean blasts him away with a rock salt shotgun, which ends up leading them down a path into a more swampy area that takes them to a dilapidated old house that looks like something from the Camp Crystal Lake summer collection. 

They split up, Sam and Molly checking upstairs while Dean checks down, to look for any records as to where Greely might be buried. Molly ends up finding a photo album and he seems...normal. Nice, even. Molly can't believe that he'd turn into a monster like she saw, but Sam relates that anyone can become a vengeful spirit if they die a violent death. Or, worse, if something is keeping them there and living the same tragedies over and over and over again. Sam shows some sympathy for those people, since they were people once.

Dean ends up finding a hollow panel in the room, kicking it in to find a secret room behind it. Inside, amid cobwebs and the old lady smell...they find an old lady, specifically her skeleton. It seems that Greely's wife hung herself. Sam and Dean get her down off the rope to put her to rest, even digging a grave for her outside.

Molly brings up a good question about spirits - what happens to them after they're put to rest. Sam and Dean have no idea, they just know that they're gone from the mortal plane and that's really all that matters in the end for hunters. Molly reaffirms her need to see David again, Sam and Dean sharing a knowing look when she isn't looking.

Back in the house, Sam and Dean whisper talk while Molly looks over Greely's photo album, Sam saying that they should tell her about her husband. Unfortunately, she overhears them. . .and angrily confronts them when Dean refuses to let Sam tell her. "House of the Rising Sun" plays on the radio again, ending the discussion as they move to get into defensive mode, Dean even finding the radio and seeing that the cord has been torn out of the wall, a window nearby fogging up and words declaring "She's Mine".

Molly gets pulled through a window and the boys rush out after her but both she and Greely are gone. Looking back at the photo album, Sam works out that Greely's grave is under a tree.

Elsewhere, Greely has Molly tied up and declares that he only has one thing left: hurting her. And he proceeds to do so, cutting open at her flesh in a manner most distressing. Dean saves her by blasting Greely (again) with a shotgun...but Greely has caught onto this and comes back, tossing Dean around. Outside, Sam digs up the grave and manages to salt and burn it before Dean can suffer more damage. Greely explodes in fire, his spirit moving on...somewhere.

"Klaatu...verada...Nsdkfljs;dfs!"

For the dénouement, the three return to the Impala. A distraught Molly still demands to know what happened to David. She believes that he's dead, but Sam informs her that he's very much alive and agrees to take her to him. She's overjoyed. . .until she sees him through the window of his house, looking somewhat older and wearing a robe as he pours a morning cup of coffee, exchanging a kiss with a brunette woman.

His wife.

It seems that Molly died fifteen years ago, the same wreck that killed Jonah Greely also killed her. Molly has been a spirit the whole time. We see the story from Sam and Dean's perspective, the same story popping up about a woman rushing into the street to get help and accidentally causing a wreck. They had asked David, David informing them that Molly had been cremated, and thus everything falls into place. Molly was the second person haunting Highway 41.

All this brought to her attention, Molly debates going to speak to David before, finally deciding to move on. She walks into the sunrise, not looking back as a bright light overtakes her. . .and she's gone. Dean asks Sam if she's going to a better place and Sam hopes that she is. When Dean says that they won't know until they do it themselves Sam tells him that it doesn't really matter, hope is kind of the point.

So, Roadkill! Good episode, not a great name for it. Seeing the hunt from someone's perspective other than Sam or Dean's gives us a neat view of things that we don't usually get. Granted, it makes them going out of their way to avoid the big twist at the end kind of obvious even if it is set up really well. Tricia Helfer (who you might remember as Number Six from Battlestar Galactica) plays Molly really well, showing her fear, determination, sorrow, and optimism in a very balanced and believable way and in a way that doesn't belie the torture she suffered at Greely's hand for fifteen years. She's honestly probably one of the most tragic stories in Supernatural, which is not a statement I can make lightly.

Greely is creepy as Hell, too.

Speaking of tragic stories in Supernatural, we finally get to see the writers (and Sam and Dean) take on the legend of the werewolf. They will also take a croquet mallet right into our guts with a new love interest for Sam that you just know is going to end in absolute tragedy. Next time, we'll be getting our silver bullets and getting a shot right in the Heart!

Be there!