Supernatural 7.14 Recap: Plucky Pennywhistle’s…Where All Your Fears Come True

Sometimes it can be dangerous to have a run of Supernatural episodes that are light on mythology. But sometimes you get an episode like “Plucky Pennywhistle”, which was most definitely light on mythology, but was just so fun that you don’t even care.

After the trauma with Dean’s “monster Amazon baby” in the previous episode, the boys found themselves at a dead end. Dean checked in with Frank, suggesting that he continue to look into Dick Roman, but the trail on the Amazons has gone cold. Instead, Sam suggested they look into a recent string of odd murders in Kansas.

The Scariest Place on Earth

The boys headed to town and it took a bit of digging, but Dean soon realized that the kids of the victims had something in common: they had recently been at a birthday party at Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie, a local pizza joint like Chuck E. Cheese. Dean suggested that Sam head over there to investigate and immediately Sam’s hackles were up. Here’s the thing about Sam – his problems are usually so big that sometimes it’s easy to forget that he’s a person just like the rest of us. And despite the fact that he’s managing to suppress memories of HELL, he’s deathly afraid of clowns. CLOWNS. I mean, come on, right? Dean, of course, picks up on this, because apparently he used to drop Sam off at Plucky’s when they were kids and go trolling for chicks, which may or may not have lead to Sam’s phobia, but certainly scarred him for life in any event.

Sam was freaking out during his initial tour of Plucky’s, because the place was covered in clowns. But he spotted a wall of children’s drawings that caught his attention. The kids had been asked to draw their biggest fear, which later actually came to life to kill their misbehaving parents.

While the Winchesters were convinced that Plucky’s was the connection between the victims, they couldn’t figure out who or what was causing these fears to come to life. So they decided to have Sam play his “bad cop” routine (it was pretty amusing!) on all of the Plucky’s employees, while Dean stuck around to see if anyone was acting strange. One by one they eliminated the employees, until one decided to run. But it turns out he only did that because he was afraid of being busted for drugs. Fortunately, he was able to share some information that strange sounds had been coming from the boiler room.

It’s Always About Family

Dean sent Sam off to protect a mother that they thought would be the next victim while he went to investigate the basement. The eldest Winchester soon realized that the Plucky’s greeter (Howard) was the man behind the mojo and was using the drawings and some magic to bring these creatures to life. But Howard had a surprise for Dean…he was actually targeting Sam and he knew that Sam was afraid of clowns.

So while some scary-looking clowns beat the ever-loving snot out of Sam, Dean did a bit of therapy. He found out that Howard had been passed over for a promotion and had he also wanted to teach the horrible parents a lesson. Why? Because he had lost his brother when they were younger, even after screaming for his parents as his brother drowned. Dean threw a photo that Howard had drew into the fire and the ghost of his brother came back and drowned Howard from the inside-out.

Glitter!

Fortunately, Dean managed to stop the spells in progress and the two clowns that were about to kill Sam exploded in a shower of glitter. Yes, Supernatural fans, Sam Winchester was positively covered in glitter. You know who found that hilarious? (Besides us, of course). Dean. Dean laughed his butt off when he saw his brother. Then we got a nice little Winchester bonding moment, where Dean apologized for ditching Sam in Plucky’s when they were younger and Sam stole Dean a giant slinky. That’s love, folks. Seriously.

Like I said, this week’s Supernatural was light on the mythology, but I had such a smile on my face that I didn’t mind much. Sure, the leviathan action needs to ramp up soon (not to mention the personal demons both Sam and Dean are fighting), but sometimes it’s nice to kick back with a case and a heap of references to the days when Sam and Dean were younger. And yes, I realize this review is a lot shorter than it normally is, but there’s not many deep things to say about the episode besides “I giggled a lot” and “glitter!”.

Well, on second thought, it is a bit strange how Dean went from the “I’ll do my best to stay alive” mentality in the previous episode to his more light-hearted attitude this week. But I think it’s because this case actually reminded him a lot of his and Sam’s childhood. I think that fact goes a long way to reinforcing the importance of Sam in Dean’s life and the fact that his brother has become his last lifeline in a terribly cruel season full of loss.

Here’s a tiny bit of trivia for you…cast your memory back to the Supernatural episode “Houses of the Holy”. Remember a comment Dean made about unicorns? “You know what, there’s a ton of lore on unicorns too. In fact, I hear that they ride on silver moonbeams, and that they shoot rainbows out of their ass!” Well, the unicorn in this week’s episode wasn’t riding on a silver moonbeam, but it sure as hell had a rainbow shooting out of its ass.

There will be a new episode of Supernatural on February 17 and the Winchesters will be revisiting a case from their past, while Sam battles those aforementioned personal demons. Watch a trailer for the episode here and browse through photos here.