Oh, dear.
Car trouble?
And on my way back from the market
with a pot roast already in the oven.
I don't suppose you'd mind giving me a ride to town
so I can find someone who can fix this?
Wouldn't mind at all,
but let me see if I can help you first.
You really know about cars?
And my husband's the Julia Child of the family.
Oh!
Hmm.
I'm guessing you have a loose drive belt.
It's an easy fix with a wrench and some sweat.
Oh, my husband keeps a toolbox in the trunk.
Wait here.
What are the odds, huh? A gal who's good with cars
happening down this same way.
Hmm.
I sure am lucky. Wouldn't you agree?
Dorothea.
credits
Okay, you're all set.
Anything breaks into your hideout,
this box will let you know. Loudly.
How's it work?
A rare and dangerous magic called technology.
Relays, inverter relays, circuitry
all wired through the phone lines
to pressure switches mounted on the clubhouse entrances.
Nice. Thank you.
Just doing my part. Now, if I could just get
that monster-box of yours working again.
- Any luck with the Ostium? - Well, at this point,
I have ruled out replacing the carburetor.
Later, alligators.
All right, where were we?
Well, your dad and Ada are still out looking for magic
to defeat the Akrida, and Carlos and Lata
are searching the Akrida queen, so that leaves us with...
deep cuts from the Men of Letters back catalogue.
Hooray.
There has to be something in here
about taking out the Akrida.
_
KSU?
You about to trade me in
for a guy with elbow patches on his jacket?
Don't wig out, soldier boy. It's close to home.
Well, open it.
- What if I don't get in? - Well...
KSU is a pretty big party school,
so that probably rules you out.
Hey!
I don't even know what I'm gonna study.
I'm pretty sure that's the point of undergrad.
Here. I'll read it for you.
What?
I got in?
I got in.
A normal life's right around the corner for you, Campbell.
Think it's a glitch?
With our luck?
Normal life is gonna have to wait another day.
Hunting and happy endings don't usually mix,
so when you get your chance, you got to ask yourself,
"How far will I go to get it?"
Well, this has been a spectacular failure.
We've scoured every location Samuel suspected
the Akrida queen could be and found nothing.
I mean, perhaps we should circle back,
check our work.
Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.
Of course, that could be a colossal waste of time.
Totally agree.
Or I could take a machete from your collection
and chop you up into tiny, little bits.
Sounds great. Wait, what?
You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?
You've been distracted this entire trip.
Missing exits,
forgetting your silver blade at the diner last night.
- I didn't forget my silver blade. - Yes, you did.
Come on. What's on your mind?
Is it the Akrida?
The whole end of the world bit?
It's Anton.
I thought things were going well.
Yeah, that's the problem. I can't stop thinking about him.
I even saw his beautiful, round, dimpled face
in my blueberry pancakes I ordered this morning.
So things are getting serious.
I can't believe I'm actually saying this,
but I'm...
Taking things slow.
And that's a bad thing because?
Because taking things slow and seeing faces in pancakes
is for stupid, boring people
who don't have the fate of the world
on their excellently proportioned shoulders.
No, but it's fine, all right? I know what I have to do.
- No. No. No. - Yes. Yes. Yes.
- No. No. - Yes. Yes.
- Ow. - Proportioned shoulders.
You are not breaking up with him.
- What do you expect me to do? - Oh, I don't know.
Maybe accept your feelings instead of throwing them away.
I mean, remember Raquel? Or Beth?
- Or sad, sad, little Kevin? - No, no, no, not really.
And that's kind of the whole goal.
And just like all lovers of yore,
alas, it is time to officially end things with Anton.
And forget what I need to forget.
Wait a minute. Maybe that's the answer.
Well, thank you. I'm glad you see
I make a compelling argument.
Okay, no. Not you. Hush. You're an idiot.
I'm talking about finding the Akrida queen.
Every person we freed from the Akrida's control
had one of those monsters in their head, right?
If they still have memories from that time,
perhaps one of them might be able to help us.
And I might just know the right person to see
if you are right.
Oh, my God.
That's mildly disturbing.
Are these alphabetized?
You know of any monsters that like to break in
and clean up in record time?
Mary Poppins.
Wait, is Mary Poppins... no.
Ah, right on schedule.
May I pour you some chamomile?
Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?
I might ask the same of you.
My name is Porter J. Hobbes,
Men of Letters identification number 22-8,
and I used
my key to come here
to help you.
Help us with what?
Well, with the task at hand, of course.
Killing the Akrida queen.
Well, his bona fides check out.
- No Akrida marks. - Holy water?
Drank the whole glass. Thanked me for it.
Guy's definitely human.
Think we can trust him?
Hey, Tea Time, the Men of Letters
got wiped out years ago, so we're gonna need
the full encyclopedia entry
of who you are and where the hell you've been.
I must say I am pleasantly surprised.
It was my experience Hunters stab first
and ask questions never.
Everything in its place.
I was a neurosurgeon until a very charming gentleman
named Mr. Glass recruited me into the Men of Letters.
I was honored to serve as their master physician.
You stitched up members.
Oh, no, no, no. Not at all.
Men of Letters rarely got their hands dirty.
No, I was brought in
to experiment on the minds of monsters.
Wait, so the monster morgue downstairs,
- that's your office? - Yes.
I singlehandedly designed and built the laboratory
to conduct my research experiments.
I was mostly tasked with turning monsters into watchdogs
to guard our more secure locations.
A lobotomy to the frontal cortex
makes many a monster subservient.
So where have you been?
I retired to return to my private practice about 15 years ago.
When you worked here, did you know my father?
Henry Winchester. He was an initiate.
Uh, I apologize,
but that name doesn't ring any bells.
If your father was a member, that makes you a legacy then.
Oh, how wonderful for your family.
I never had time to have one of my own.
Do you know what happened to the Men of Letters?
MY best guess... The Akrida.
Shortly before my retirement, they had returned.
We managed to push them back to their own world.
- With the Ostium? - Indeed,
but we suffered severe casualties.
They retreated, but some of them remained hidden.
- Including... - The queen.
Yes, indeed.
I retired,
but I continued to study them.
And when I found out they were staging another attack,
I amped up my research,
and I'd like to share with you
what I uncovered.
Hello? Anyone in there?
Lata,
is she dead?
The hell you want?
It's okay.
It's okay. We just want to talk.
Where I do I know you from?
We've crossed paths a few times,
although you might not remember.
Radio station said we might find you here.
Was that before or after
they told you they took me off the air?
They did mention there was a parting of ways.
Yeah, well...
going AWOL for weeks on end
doesn't exactly make you employee of the month.
So what do you want?
We're here about the Akrida.
That's some...
some band you're hawking?
I never heard of them.
Look, I think it's time for you guys to go.
We think you know.
You're just afraid to tell anyone because...
because of what they did to you.
We're here because we want to help you.
Who the hell are you and
how can you help me with my nightmares?
I know this isn't easy, but the things you're remembering,
they aren't bad dreams. They're real.
I thought I was going crazy.
That was the only explanation.
No.
No one here thinks you're crazy.
But we do want to stop this from happening to anyone else,
but in order to do that,
we need you to tell us exactly what you remember.
I can't.
It's all fragments and pieces.
And I don't want to remember anymore.
All right? This... this episode,
this break, whatever you want to call it,
it has taken everything from me.
My girlfriend.
My job.
My apartment.
Gone.
All I want to do now is try and forget.
I'm sorry, but from the look of things,
that doesn't seem to be working out.
Yeah, well, I'm not done trying.
What if I told you there was another way?
If you help us, I can help you forget all of it.
How?
Yeah, how?
Now, to take out the Akrida,
we must first kill the queen.
Do you have anything in that bag that's not of this world?
Ah, so you've already learned
about that little loophole, have you?
Hunters, you continue to defy my prejudices.
So these stingers they use to control people.
Are not of this world.
Now, by folding the cellular protein of an Akrida
into an abnormal protein...
well, that's basically a misfolded protein...
I can produce a neurotoxin
that will ravage the queen's DNA.
Oh, she'll suffer greatly before dying.
Okay. So for this plan to work,
- you need the Akrida stingers. - Mm-mm.
No, the Akrida stingers can't be removed
without serious mental magic.
Ah, well now, you see, that's what I thought at first,
but then I discovered that if I make an incision
in the basal ganglia, similar to a craniotomy,
the stingers can then be safely removed.
And the human host?
Oh, back to his or her normal life.
Now, I can perform the procedure,
but I'm afraid I'll be rather useless
at procuring a subject.
- That's more... - Dirty work.
Hunter work.
Crudely put, but that's your nature.
Now, what we need is a human under Akrida control.
We know a guy.
Dispatch for Officer Jones. A motorist requires
roadside assistance out on Brookside Road.
What seems to be the problem?
Took you long enough, Officer Jones.
Breaking into police frequency
could put you behind bars, young lady.
Too bad you're gonna die
before I can even get my cuffs on you.
Hey, you'll thank us later, buddy.
Thank you.
Must they encase all their foods in congealed oil?
It's repulsive.
But their ranch dressing...
remind me to slather it liberally over their corpses
during invasion times.
Which brings us to the matter at hand.
The Hunters.
They were useful when we needed them for monster essence,
but now they're a problem.
With that ink on their skin, we can't even take them over.
So why haven't we cracked their skulls open?
Because the queen thinks
these pests may still be useful.
Namely, leading us to this bastard.
The queen believes he's a Hunter himself,
and by all accounts from our spies in the field,
he's the reason the Hunters' merry band got together.
He needs to be eliminated.
But how? We don't even know who he is.
I have a plan.
We just need to spill a little human blood.
No need to worry, my friends.
The phenobarbital mixture in this IV is my own creation.
Strong enough to keep a werewolf sleeping
while a bone saw cuts through its skull.
Although the curveball is if they start
to transform mid-surgery. Now, that is...
So we're safe.
Oh, indeed.
It's incredible.
So close to finishing my work after all these years.
Finally paying back those bugs for what they took from me.
- What did they take from you? - Hmm?
Oh, well, from all of us.
If you'll excuse me,
there's just a few last items
I need to fetch from the atrium.
All right, what was that about?
I'm getting the impression
this is personal for him in a way he hasn't shared.
Something is off about this guy.
Didn't he say that he didn't have a family?
Yeah, why?
There's an indentation where the ring should be.
You know, some of the older married guys in 'Nam,
they used to keep their wedding rings with their dog tags.
They all had the same mark on their finger.
So what else is he lying to us about?
All right.
This is it.
Everything in my emergency stash.
Now, when are you gonna tell me what the vein juice is for?
It's for a ceremony involving blood magic.
It's how we're gonna get Roxy to remember,
then forget, her Akrida memories.
Aren't spells usually Ada's thing?
I mean, did she teach you how to do any of this?
Close, but no.
Tony did.
Tony?
You mean your crush Tony. That Tony?
I mean, how? I thought he was gone and off the grid.
Oh, you dirty, dozing tramp.
Have you been seeing him in your dreams?
Yes, but it's not what you think.
Mostly not.
He's been educating me.
Oh, I am sure he has.
Spill.
He's been using his knowledge as a djinn
to teach me a technique
to induce a type of meditative state.
Teach me a meditative state.
Like magical hypnosis
allowing a person to access their buried memories.
It works in two parts.
First, we excavate Roxy's memories,
then two, we erase them.
At least, that's the hope.
Never actually done this before.
Wiped down my arms like you asked.
So before I chicken out, let's do this.
Take a breath.
Deep and slow.
Okay.
Now, I want you to think back, Roxy,
all the way to when your memories
first became fractured.
What do you see?
It's late.
After work.
I'm walking to my car.
Wait. There's something moving in the dark.
It's...
Roxy, what is it?
I won't let you do it again.
- Lata. - Monster.
All right, stand back. I'll handle her.
No, don't.
It's working.
I feel it... on me.
It's burrowing inside.
It's here.
It's taking my arms.
My body.
My voice.
I tried to scream, but I'm not here anymore.
I'm not anywhere.
Hey.
Do you feel that?
Yeah? Then you are right here.
You are not trapped in your memories.
You are choosing to be brave and fight back.
These monsters we're hunting, they have a leader.
We need to find out where she's hiding
in order to defeat them.
Can you tell us where?
The queen...
she's underground.
Where underground?
Wait a second.
Didn't Porter say he built the laboratory himself?
'Cause here, it says credit for the lab construction
goes to his assistant, a guy named Jack Wilcox.
Well, there's got to be a file on him.
Wilcox. Here we go.
Jack Wilcox, assistant to a Porter J. Hobbes,
born in Biloxi, Mississippi, married to a...
Dorothea Wilcox.
Jack oversaw every aspect of building the medical lab
and received special recognition
for following through with his motto.
"Everything in its place."
It said he was kicked out of the Men of Letters
for experimenting on humans.
And look at the name of the guy who reported him.
Come in.
Just finishing up the last piece
I need before the surgery.
It takes a lot to keep these Akrida subdued.
I'm sure. You know, Mary and I...
- we're really impressed. - Yeah.
Your photo should be on the Men of Letters hall of fame.
Clearly Porter J. Hobbes was the brains of this outfit.
Well, you can rest assured,
it was a team effort back in the day...
just as it is today.
Who else was on the team?
Oh, I had an assistant.
Charming young man.
Actually, it was he who came up with a solution
that knocked out Akrida-controlled humans.
I thought you said you came up with that concoction.
You are so very like your father, aren't you, John?
Well...
Guess I can drop that phony accent now.
Don't you worry.
It'll all be over soon.
Found something. A location in Kansas
a couple of hours away matching Roxy's description.
Huh. Nicely done.
I guess research is just another arrow
in my quiver of talents.
Hey, gently now.
You just relived months of traumatic memories.
Yeah, about that.
Why do I still remember everything?
And worse, like it happened five minutes ago.
Two-step process, I'm afraid.
First is excavation, then erasure.
It's too dangerous to keep you down for the whole thing,
but just relax while I prepare the next step.
In the meantime,
could I offer you some of my come-down tea?
I've got all the fixings in my van.
Hey.
It's gonna be okay.
I know it is.
I don't want you to make me forget.
Wait, you don't want to erase
this hellish ordeal from your brain?
You guys have a plan to take down
these Akrida bastards, right?
- We're gonna try. - They're as sure as dead.
Then I want to remember.
I want to remember that I helped you.
I want to know that my memories helped knock
these bugs back to wherever the hell they're from.
Time to dry out.
Oh, let's not throw the bourbon out
with the bathwater, shall we?
Roxy?
Thank you for helping us.
Oh, one more thing.
If there's a chance to sucker-punch this queen of theirs,
call me.
Mary. Mary.
- Where is she? - Prepped for surgery.
The hell are you talking about?
Well now, you and Mary have a big part
to play in tonight's excitement.
But I knew I had to catch the two of you alone,
and when your friends took off in the hippie wagon,
I said to myself, "Well, Jack, old boy,
here's your chance."
So your plan with the policeman...
that was just BS to get us to buy it.
Oh, I yanked all them three
Akrida stingers from your policeman friend.
Well, sadly, I was wrong
about his ability to survive the process.
You're insane.
Now, there you go.
Finally, you sound like a Men of Letters.
Just like how I told your father all them years ago.
We're in a war, son.
Time is short.
We need to exploit every option available.
Well, Mary is prepped for her procedure.
Oh, but hey, if you feel like you're missing out, rest easy.
It'll be your turn next.
What procedure?
Hey! Hey, what procedure?
Rise and shine, sweetheart.
What the hell?
Ms. Campbell, I'd like you to meet my wife, Dorothea.
What did you do to her?
Hmm? Oh, I did nothing to her.
The Akrida did this.
Now you see, shortly after I was booted
from the Men of Letters, the Akrida targeted me.
Didn't take too kindly to me
poking around in their business.
They couldn't touch me, you see, as I was warded,
same as y'all, so...
so they came after my Dorothea.
They left her in a coma.
The doctors wanted to take her off life support.
I brought her home.
Cast a spell on her to keep her in this suspended state.
Why is she here?
Well, it's time to wake her up,
finally put these stingers to their proper use.
You never were gonna help us defeat the Akrida, were you?
Now, Ms. Campbell, there is nothing I want more
than the total and utter destruction of the Akrida.
But there's no world worth saving without her in it.
Now, these stingers are capable of transmitting
one being's consciousness into another's body.
A single stinger with the right modifications
can help a woman held prisoner in her own body
to wake up in a new and healthy host.
Me.
Oh, sounds like young Winchester has met my golem.
- You have a golem? - I control it
via a scroll secured inside its mouth,
but then, hey, I guess you know about that.
I know John's gonna beat its ass.
Well, now, I wouldn't be so sure about that.
That was my spleen.
You must work for Porter, right?
Look at that!
Okay, look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Jack, my mistake.
Look, your boss, he probably wouldn't want a big mess, right?
So why don't we just call it a draw?
Whoa.
My golem is under strict orders not to kill John.
No, I need his body intact for my transfer.
Well, it's not gonna be a long honeymoon for you kids,
the end of the world coming and all.
My new body, armed with decades of research?
Oh, Dorothea and I will finally get our revenge,
end this war, and then we'll finally be able to live
the long and healthy life we were robbed of.
By robbing us of our lives. How romantic.
Wait. Well, you think you're gonna die.
Oh, no, no, no.
No, Dorothea and I may be getting into the driver's seat,
but your consciousness is coming along for the ride.
Your love will live on in us.
You have to get the scroll in the golem's mouth.
- The what? - The scroll.
You have to get the scroll from its mouth.
It freezes it. You have to get it out.
It's the only way.
Oh, that's gonna be a little difficult.
Kill him!
Mary.
Dorothea, no.
Dorothea. Dorothea.
Oh, wait. Wait.
What the...
Wait. Wait.
No, no! No.
All right.
Salted, burned, and buried.
Too bad you couldn't put this in your essay to KSU, huh?
So Porter, or Jack,
did all that just to resurrect his wife.
He gave up everything, all so he wouldn't lose Dorothea.
Things we do for love.
It's not love.
What do you mean?
Jack was only thinking of himself,
of what he wanted.
It didn't matter if it cost him his humanity to get it.
That'll never be us, right?
Never.
Whoop.
You know, how could you hold out on me like that?
And not just about your dream tryst with Tony,
but also this whole thing about your memory-erasing abilities.
In my hour of need.
Carlos, you're not seriously
asking me to erase Anton, are you?
You're saying you'd help Roxy, but not me.
No, because giving your fear of intimacy
a "get out of jail free" card does not count as help.
Okay.
Honest truth?
Yes.
If I'd known you could before, I probably would've asked.
But seeing Roxy choose
to live with her memories of the Akrida
and hearing her say
she'd be okay in spite of it
made me realize that
sometimes the things you want to forget
are probably the things you shouldn't.
And for me that's Anton.
And his beautiful, round, dimpled pancake face.
Bricks, construction equipment, just like Roxy said.
I mean, it looks like an abandoned warehouse.
Well, obviously.
But how do we know if the queen is in there?
Wait.
Hold on.
Oh, that tragic haircut.
The woman from the lab.
The Akrida-controlled human
who was collecting the monster essence.
Roxy was right. I mean, this is it.
We found the Akrida queen.
_
- Kyle? - Late night, Winchester?
How'd you get in here?
Been meaning to talk to you about this whole Mary thing.
- What do you mean? - I can see you're not much
of a critical thinker, so let me lay it out for you.
You don't know it yet,
but we're about to get in a big fight about Mary.
You may have won the girl,
but it wasn't enough for you, was it?
You just had to keep coming after me.
- Have you been drinking? - No.
Clearheaded enough to have already called the cops.
"Oh, God. Please come save me.
"John Winchester's trying to kill me.
Come to his mommy's garage as soon as you can."
How long have you been controlling Kyle?
Long enough to leave a bunch of sad little journal entries
in his diary about how you've been harassing him.
That angry streak of yours. That's right.
I've heard the stories,
and I've seen the file the cops have on you.
What do the Akrida want with Kyle?
Nothing.
He's just a means to an end, to you.
Easy.
This pretty little one's seen a lot of action, huh?
We've been watching.
You're just a killing machine, aren't you?
No!
Don't worry. I don't feel a thing.
Please don't do this.
Hey, please.
I'll see you again real soon, Winchester.
No. No, stop.
Come on. Stay with me. Come on.
Come on, Kyle. Help.
credits