Roadkill is the 16th episode of Season 2. It premiered on March 15th, 2007.
Summary[]
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There was something about being there... It felt pure. This episode summary is an official CW press release. It may contain errors. DO NOT CHANGE! |
While driving down a deserted road, Sam and Dean are startled after a bloody woman named Molly (guest star Helfer) bolts out in front of the Impala screaming for help from the crazy farmer (guest star) who is chasing her. Sam and Dean investigate and discover the man is actually an angry spirit who kills one person the same time every year and has decided Molly will be his next victim.
Plot[]
The episode opens with married couple Molly and David driving down a dark, deserted highway late at night, appearing to be lost. The two of them have been on this road for over an hour and haven't seen a single car. Looking at the map, David insists that they are not lost and that they are on Highway 99. A few seconds later, they pass a sign which reads Highway 41. David corrects himself by saying they're just taking the scenic route. But Molly is none too amused to be spending their anniversary in a car. David, trying to make up for their current situation, starts acting playfully, causing Molly to take her eyes off the road. After David sees something in the road and screams, she focuses and immediately jerks on the brake when she sees a man standing in the middle of the road, causing her to drive off the highway, down a hill and into a tree
Molly awakens in the crashed car without a scratch on her feeling disoriented. David is nowhere to be found. She screams his name frantically but receives no answer. Molly walks through the woods, calling David's name but, again, receives no answer. She comes across a cabin with a lit candle in the window and enters through the front door. When she walks in, she sees the man from the road standing in a corner with his back turned to her. He turns around, revealing his gruesome stomach wound to her. His face then quickly transforms into that of a decaying corpse as blood pours out of his mouth and Molly flees the cabin in terror.
Molly runs back through the woods and up the hill to the road. In the distance, she sees the headlights of a car and darts out in front of it screaming for it to stop. It's Sam and Dean in the Impala and a very shocked Dean jerks the car to a stop. The boys hop out of the car and Molly explains to them that she ran off the road and crashed the car and when she came to, her husband David was missing and the man from the road started chasing her. Sam and Dean ask Molly to come with them so they can get her somewhere safe, but she refuses to co-operate and asks them to take her back to her car.
Upon arriving at the site of the crash, Molly is stunned to find her car gone as if no accident occurred. Molly can't understand what could've happened to it and walks down the hill. Sam tells Dean they need to get her out of there because the man could show up any minute. Dean says if they tell her the truth, she'll take off running in the other direction. However, they do convince Molly to come with them.
As they're driving down the road, Molly tells them that she and David were supposed to be in Lake Tahoe for their five-year anniversary. All of a sudden, the radio dial moves back and fourth and then stops on a song which plays. Molly recognizes the song. The song was playing in the car when the crash took place. In the background of the music a small voice hisses in a low tone, "She's mine". Dean then sees the man from the road standing in the road again in front of the car. Dean speeds up the car, aiming to hit the man, but, as the Impala collides with him, the man vanishes in a cloud of black dust. As they look in back of them, nothing remains. A few seconds later, they are halted along the side of the road, as the car dies.
Sam and Dean get out of the car and open the trunk. Molly becomes afraid after seeing the trunk loaded with weapons and starts walking off. Dean yells out to Molly that it wasn't a coincidence that they were out here. He continues that they are tracking down this man they saw on the road, whom they believe is Jonah Greely. He died fifteen years ago on this road. Every year on the anniversary of his death he haunts this road and the boys are out to stop him.
Molly takes Sam and Dean back to the cabin where she saw Greely and Dean realizes this must have been his hunting cabin due to some tables with dried blood on them as well as some meat hooks hanging from the ceiling and numerous butcher knives hanging on the wall. They then look around outside trying to find Greely's body so they can salt and burn it. However, when Greely died, his wife claimed the body and that was the last anyone ever saw of her. Most likely she brought the body back here, but the property is one-thousand acres and it could be anywhere. The boys waste no time as they have till sunrise to finish the job.
Searching the outside premises, they head down a brick path to Greely's house, which contains no headstones outside. Sam and Molly check the upstairs of the house in search of any papers or records showing where Greely is buried. One of the rooms holds about every piece of mail and receipt they ever had. Molly picks up a photo album containing pictures of Greely and his wife. Molly asks Sam how such people can turn so evil. Sam's response is that there's usually some unfinished business keeping them here, something along the lines of revenge, love, or hate. There's a part of them that just can't let go.
Dean walks in and reports that there's nothing downstairs giving any lead on the whereabouts of Greely's body. Pulling the dresser out from the wall, Dean finds a small door leading to the attic which is locked from the inside. After breaking the door open with his foot, they find the remains of Greely's wife, apparently having hanged herself. Molly realizes this was most likely because she didn't want to live without him.
Sam and Dean carefully carry her body downstairs and outside and bury her remains beside the front step because they feel she deserves to be put to rest. Molly is curious as to what happens to spirits after they're put to rest. Truthfully, Sam and Dean tell her that don't know what happens, but hopefully they go somewhere better.
Back inside the house, Molly is in the kitchen looking through the photos in the album. Sam tells Dean that they should tell Molly the truth about David. Dean objects, saying that he feels sorry for her too, but that they need to stick to the plan and get her out and then they'll tell her. Suddenly, they hear the same song from the car playing in the house. Dean walks slowly into the other room and finds the music coming from a jukebox which is unplugged. Molly, standing by the window, starts screaming as Greely smashes the window open and grabs her out of the house. But as fast as Sam and Dean can respond, Greely and Molly have disappeared. Back inside the house, Sam and Dean search for any leads on the whereabouts of Greely's body. Sam looks at one of the photos in the album that was taken outside the hunting cabin on February 6th, 1992, about two weeks before the accident. However a tree appears to be missing. It suddenly dawns on Sam that Greely's body must be burried under a tree as it's an old country custom to plant a tree as a grave marker.
Meanwhile, inside the hunting cabin, Greely has bound Molly with her hands above her head using chains suspended from the ceiling. Molly tells Greely that she knows about his wife and that hurting her wont bring her back to which Greely replies that his wife is gone and hurting Molly is all he has left. He then uses his claw like fingernails to cut Molly's chest and belly. Sam and Dean arrive and Sam stays outside to dig up Greely's body while Dean rushes inside the cabin to rescue Molly. Dean fires a round of rock salt at Greely, causing him to vanish. Greely quickly reappears behind Dean, however, and, as Dean turns to face him, uses his telekinesis to throw Dean against the wall. Greely grabs a knife from the wall and attacks Dean again. Outside the cabin, Sam, having dug up Greely's remains, salts and burns them, causing Greely's ghost to become engulfed in flames before vanishing for good.
Sam, Dean, and Molly head back up the road to the Impala and Molly asks what happened to David. Sam tells her that David is alive and that they'll take her to see him.
As agreed, Sam and Dean drive Molly to go see David, pulling up at a house unfamiliar to Molly. Molly gets out and walks up to the door, but stops as she looks through the window and sees David kissing another woman. The boys explain to her that the woman inside is David's wife. Fifteen years ago, Molly and David accidentally hit and killed Jonah Greely with their car before crashing the car into a tree. Molly was killed though David survived. Every year on the anniversary of his death, Jonah Greely decides to punish someone for what happened to him. That someone is always Molly. She's been appearing on that road every year on the anniversary of her death. Several flashback scenes are shown at this point. The first scene goes back to the Impala before they run into Molly. Sam and Dean are discussing the case and Sam explains that there have been twelve accidents over the past fifteen years, five of them fatal, all happening on the same night, with witnesses saying that the same thing made them crash: a woman appearing in the road being chased by a man covered in blood. The next flashback shows Sam and Dean at the library looking up a news article on the accident. The third flashback shows Sam and Dean talking with David, with David revealing that Molly's body was cremated. A fourth shows the scene in the Impala right before Molly darts out in front of them. That's when Molly realizes that she's really dead and that she's here in spirit form.
Molly is in shock to realize the truth about what happened. She still feels the need to go talk to David. Sam and Dean tell her that if she wants to go inside, they're not going to stop her, but they warn her that she's going to freak him right out for life. They feel that if she lets go of everything that's happened, she'll move on to a better place. As much as Molly wants to see David, she understands that the boys are right, and agrees to let go. She walks into the glare of the sunrise and vanishes in the light. As Sam and Dean head back to the Impala, they look back at the sunrise and hope she's going to a better place.
Characters[]
Main Cast[]
Recurring Cast[]
Special Guest Stars[]
Co-Stars[]
- Winston Rekert as Jonah Greely
- Dan Gauthier as David McNamara
Featured Supernatural Beings[]
Continuity[]
- Sam and Dean will learn in later seasons that ghosts move on to Heaven and Hell once put to rest.
Trivia[]
- At the end of the episode, Dean tells Sam "Alright Haley Joel, let's hit the road." Haley Joel Osment is an actor best known for his role as the child in the movie Sixth Sense with the ability to not only see, but commiserate with ghosts.
- After Sam tells Molly that ghosts weren't evil people when they were alive, Dean says "Sammy is always getting a little J. Love Hewitt when it comes to things like this." Jennifer Love Hewitt is an actress portraying Melinda Gordon - a girl who can talk to ghosts - in the TV series Ghost Whisperer.
- Although it is not seen as odd, when Sam and Dean take Molly to see her husband, he and his now wife are both awake in the dead of night an hour or two before sunrise and surprisingly active.
- It's winter, so sunrise would be rather late. They're probably just getting ready for the day after they got up.
- Dean makes a reference to The Wizard of Oz, saying: "Hey, follow the creepy brick road." The original quote is "Follow the yellow brick road".
- The CW's official summary for this episode has an error where the farmer's guest star actor is not named. It should read '(guest star Winston Rekert)'.
- As Molly McNamara is gone in a shining light on the horizon, it can be assumed she moved on into Heaven.
Deaths[]
- Molly McNamara (Human)
- Jonah Greely (Human)
- Five unnamed people (mentioned only)
- Marion Greely
- Jonah Greely (Vengeful Spirit)
- Molly McNamara (Ghost)
Featured Music[]
- "The House Of The Rising Sun" by The Animals
Cultural References[]
Ghosbusters (1984)
- Molly compares Sam and Dean to the Ghostbusters:
- Molly: Is is really what you guys do? You're like Ghostbusters?
- Sam: Yeah.
- Dean: Minus the jumpsuits.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) (Novel)
- Dean makes a reference to The Wizard of Oz:
- Dean: Follow the creepy brick road.
Ghost Whisperer (2005) (TV Series)
- Dean compares Sam to Melinda Gordon, a character from the TV series Ghost Whisperer:
- Dean: Sammy's always getting a little J. Love Hewitt when it comes to things like this.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
- Dean calls Sam "Haley Joel" again, referring to the character the actor Haley Joel Osment played in the film The Sixth Sense:
- Dean: All right, Haley Joel. Let's hit the road.
Quotes[]
- Sam: "Should've thought of it."
- Dean: "What?"
- Sam: "It's an old country custom, Dean. Planting a tree as a grave marker."
- Dean: "You're like a walking encyclopedia of weirdness."
(walks off)
- Sam: (calls after him) "Yeah, I know."
- Dean: (after they come to see a creepy-looking house) "You know, just once I'd like to round the corner and see a nice house."
- Dean: "Hey, follow the creepy brick road."
International Titles[]
- Finnish: Tien Nielemä (Swallowed By The Road)
- Brazil: O Fantasma da Estrada (The Ghost Of The Road)
- French: Le Temps Des Adieux (Time To Say Goodbye)
- German: Autobahn 41 (Highway 41)
- Polish: Rozjechany (Run over)
- Hungarian: Halálút (Death Road)
External links[]
- Supernatural: "Roadkill" IGN review
See Also[]
- Roadkill (the Japanese Animated remake of this epiosde)