Originally aired: 02/11/2006
Writer: Matt Witten
Director: Kim Manners
Guest Stars: Sammantha Ferris as Ellen, Alona
Tal as Jo
Official CW Description
SAM AND DEAN MEET THE
GHOST OF AMERICA'S FIRST SERIAL KILLER - Sam and Dean
investigate the brutal slayings of blond women from
an apartment building and discover the demon responsible
is the ghost of the first serial murderer, H. H. Holmes.
Meanwhile, defying her mother's wishes, Jo follows the
Winchesters on their hunt and ends up getting captured
by the ghost and buried alive.
Full Synopsis
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
The
episode opens in an apartment building. The lights are
flickering and scratching is heard in the walls. A girl
is on the phone complaining about the flickering lights.
She sits down on the couch and notices drops of a black
tar-like substance on the coffee table falling from
the ceiling. Hearing the scratching becoming louder,
she gets up and walks towards the other end of the room.
She sees more of the tar substance oozing out of the
light switch and flowing like a fountain down the side
of the wall. Looking closely into the screw hole of
the switch, a man’s eye pop up and she screams
to the top of her lungs.
Roadhouse
Sam and Dean are outside the roadhouse making a joke
about heading for L.A. to investigate the disappearance
of Katie Holmes who’s been kidnapped by an evil
cult. However as they’re getting in the car, they
hear screaming and yelling inside the roadhouse and
go check out the catfight. Jo and Ellen are arguing
over whether Jo should be allowed to go on a hunt by
herself. The phone rings and when Ellen goes to answer
it, Jo shows Sam and Dean the case on the death of the
girl in the Philadelphia apartment three days ago. Over
the past 80 years six women have disappeared from the
same building, all young blondes. The murders only occurred
once every decade or two so the cops never eyeballed
the pattern. Dean asks if Ash put this case together
and Jo says she did it herself. Ellen tells the boys
to take the case and says to Jo, “Joanne Beth
this family has lost enough. I won’t lose you
too. I won’t.”
Philadelphia
Apartment
The boys sneak into the girl’s apartment and scan
the room with their EMF’s. Sam picks up high signals
as he pans the scanner over the light switch. He notices
the tar-like substance and recognizes it as ectoplasm.
Sam says he’s only seen this stuff once or twice
and in order to make it, you have to be one majorily
pissed off spirit.
Hallway
As the boys walk down the hallway, they hear voices
and hide behind the corner. However as the voices get
closer they realize that it’s Jo, who’s
followed them here talking with the building manager
about renting the apartment. She tells him that Dean
is her boyfriend and they need a fresh start and they
want to rent the apartment. Dean decides to go along
with the charade and says he wants the apartment. Jo
opens her purse and hands the manager a roll of bills
in exchange for the key.
Apartment
Sam and Dean are loading up their weapons and Dean asks
Jo if her mother knows she’s here. Jo says that
she left a note saying she was in Vegas and that she
got Ash to lay a credit card trail all the way to the
casinos. Dean’s phone rings. It’s Ellen
wanting to know if Jo’s with them. Dean’s
about ready to spill the beans but covers for Jo and
says that he hasn’t seen her.
Going over the buildings history, Jo
informs them that this building built in 1924 originally
as a warehouse and then turned into an apartment complex
a few years ago. Before that there was nothing. There
were no violent deaths reported in the past 82 years.
Sam thinks it could be a cursed object that brought
the spirit along. They decide to scan every area of
the building they can get to. Jo says they’ll
save time by splitting up but Dean says there’s
no way he’s letting her out of his sight.
Hallway
Dean and Jo are scanning the first two floors and arguing
about this hunt. Jo says that using herself as bait
would be the quickest way to catching the spirit. Dean
chuckles in his throat saying, “I’m so regretting
this.” At that moment Jo finally confronts Dean
about his attitude towards her and that she’s
tired of his chauvinist crap, thinking women can’t
do the job. Dean says women can do the job, but amateurs
can’t and that she has no experience. Sounding
like Ellen, Dean tells Jo that she’s got options,
that no one in the right mind chooses this job and that
she should be grateful to have a mother who cares for
her and wants more for her.
They continue walking down the hall.
Jo stops at the turn corner scanning the alls. The camera
pans down at the vent and we see grey gushy fingers
extending out. Jo turns around suddenly and the fingers
disappear. Dean senses a smell that he recognizes but
he can’t put a name to it. Jo picks up high signals
as she scans the vent. Dean unscrews the vent and reaches
in hoping to find something and manages to pull out
a lock of blonde hair.
Teresa’s
Apartment- later that evening
Teresa walks into the apartment reading a letter in
the mail. Drops of ectoplasm fall from the ceiling.
The lights start flickering and she looks up at the
ceiling and sees the walls shredding open. She rushes
to the phone only to get static. She tries the front
door but no luck. Then as she turns around towards the
wall she sees the hand coming out of the vent. It grabs
her by the leg and pulls her in.
Apartment-
next morning
Dean’s sleeping on the couch and wakes up to the
sound of sirens outside. Jo’s been awake for sometime
reviewing all the information so far, still twirling
around the small pocket knife in her hand. Dean takes
a larger one out of his bag and hands it to her, saying
it will work better than that one. She hands him hers
and he reads the inscription on the knife W.A.M. (William
Anthony Harvelle) her father. Dean apologizes for the
mistake and she asks him what’s the first thing
that comes to his mind when he thinks about his dad.
Dean recalls a time when he was six and his dad took
him targeting for the first time and he bulls-eyed every
one. Jo says she remembers her dad coming home from
a hunt each night and how happy she and her mom were
to have him home because they were a family. Jo says
that she wants to do this job for him.
Sam walks in and reports that another
girl, Teresa Ellis in apartment 2F, disappeared last
night. There were cracks all over the walls and ceiling,
ectoplasm too. Jo points out in a picture over the area
that the building next door was once a prison. She calls
up Ash to get information. He digs up that it was the
Moyamensing Prison, built in 1835 and torn down in 1963.
They executed people by hanging them in the empty filed
next door. Ash emails Sam a list of everyone executed,
157 names. One of the names on the list is Herman Webster
Mudgett (H.H. Holmes). Sam pulls up information on Holmes.
He was executed at the prison on May 7th, 1896. The
time multi murder was used to describe him, he was America’s
first serial killer before anyone knew what a serial
killer was. He confessed to 27 murders but some put
the death toll at over 100. His victim flavor of choice
was blonde women and he used chloroform to kill them,
which is what Dean smelled in the hallway last night.
The cops found human remains and long locks of blonde
hair in his home. Jo says that they should find the
bones, salt them and burn them. Sam says it’s
not going to be that easy. His body was buried in town,
but it’s encased in a several tons of concrete.
Story goes Holmes didn’t want anyone mutilating
his corpse because that’s what he used to do.
Sam also points out that Holmes built
an apartment building in Chicago, they called it the
Murder Castle. The whole place was a death factory containing
trap doors, acid fats, and quick line pits. He built
these chambers inside the walls, locking his victims
inside, keeping them alive for days. He would suffocate
some and others he would let starve to death.
Inside
the Walls
The three of them break through the dry wall and head
inside in search for any sign of Teresa. Dean and Jo
come across and path too narrow for Dean to get through.
But Jo can fit through, so she continues down the path
on her own. She follows the path to the north wall and
heads down an air duct to the lower level. Looking at
the walls, Jo sees more of the ectoplasm seeping the
through the bricks. Still on the phone, Dean hears her
screaming and a few seconds later the call cuts off.
Dean rushes down to the next floor, hammers into the
dry wall trying to find her. But all he finds is her
cell phone.
Apartment-
next morning
Sam and Dean have been inside the walls all night searching
for Jo and have found no sign of her. Dean’s phone
rings. It’s Ellen and she’s boiling mad
because he lied to her. She demands to know where Jo
is and Dean tells her the truth that Holmes took her,
but makes a promise to her that he’ll find her
and get her back. “You promise, that’s not
the first time I’ve heard that from a Winchester.
I’m on the next flight out.” Sam notices
that there’s a sewer system connected to the building,
and they lose no time and head out.
Sewers
Jo wakes up finding herself trapped in a tight space.
She turns on her flashlight and sees fingerprints and
dried blood on the ceiling. In the next room, Jo sees
Teresa and she tries to reassure her that Sam and Dean
will find them. Holmes walks into the chambers and reaches
into Jo’s cell and grabs a handful of her hair.
Jo manages to grab her knife and stab his hand. At that
moment, Sam and Dean burst into the chamber and fire
several rounds of rock salt into his stomach. Sam and
Dean get both Jo and Teresa out of their cells. Sam
gets Teresa out of the sewers but Dean says that they
have to use Jo as bait because it’s the only thing
he can think of at this point. Jo agrees to it and sits
in the middle of the open chamber sitting perfectly
still. Holmes suddenly appears behind Jo and inches
closer and closer to her. As he’s hovering directly
above her Dean fires a buck shot into the ceiling releasing
salt that falls to the ground in a perfect ring surrounding
the entire chamber, trapping Holmes inside.
Dean steals a cement truck and fills
up the open hole to the sewer to be sure that Holmes
remains down there till “all hell freezes over”.
Impala
With Ellen in the car, the four of them drive back to
the roadhouse. Everyone is dead silent. You can hear
a pin drop. Nobody dares to mess with Ellen.
Roadhouse
As they arrive back Dean apologizes to Ellen once again
for lying to her and says that Jo did well out there,
that her dad would be proud. Ellen says that she needs
a minute alone with her daughter. Ellen can’t
believe that she trust her life to these boys. A few
minutes later, Jo storms out of the roadhouse and tells
Dean to back off and to leave now. It turns out that
John was her dad’s partner on his last hunt and
that John got her dad killed. That’s why John
never mentioned Ellen to the boys, because he couldn’t
look her in the eye after what happened. Jo walks off
in the distance.
Synopsis
by Matt (godismydaddy)
Episode Music
Cold
as Ice by Foreigner
Surrender by Cheap Trick
Extras
Episode
Trailer
Episode
Screencaps Inside
The Legend
Episode Review
Audio
Clips
Video Clips
Catching
Holmes
Marshmellow
Man
You've
Got Options...
Dad's
