"You know, I kinda think it was half awesome."

And now for something completely different…

The bulk of this episode was written before the Writer's Strike came into effect, at a time when it wasn't known that it would be leading into the final three episodes of the season. There's been a bit of controversy about that, with many fans disappointed to have such a light-hearted offering as the first episode back after the strike, especially since the Winchester brothers take something of a back seat here, when we've been starved of them for so long. But none of that can be helped – the episode is what it is as a result of the circumstances in which it was written. With the pressure to get back into production being what it was post-strike, obviously they had to go with the material they had prepared, despite only having three more episodes to follow it, instead of another nine.

All that being said, I really love this episode. It's very cleverly written, and so well structured, with fantastic attention to detail. The use of wobbly handheld cameras and lack of proper lighting might not be terribly easy to watch, especially when we are so accustomed to the beautiful cinematography the show usually produces, but this format works tremendously effectively to sell the concept of the episode, and holds together beautifully. The character work is wonderful, with the group of guest characters extremely well fleshed out over the course of the episode; we may or may not particularly like them or agree with them, but we can understand them completely – which is a lot more than can be said for, say, Bela. In addition, the strict outsider perspective employed by this episode gives us, as viewers, the opportunity to take a step back and regain some much-needed perspective after the intensity of the last few episodes, before plunging headlong toward what will surely be an incredible season finale.

Okay, on with the show.

"So what do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell," Dean suggests.

There's a short montage of evil sons of bitches killed by the brothers Winchester over the past couple of years. It's short because there's other stuff to catch us up on going into this episode, lest we forgot, what with that fiendishly long unscheduled hiatus and all.

Then.

Dean sold his soul to the Crossroads Demon in exchange for Sam's life and one final year before his bill comes due, and Sam vowed to find a way to save him.

Also, way, way back in season one, Dean and Sam met Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler, self-proclaimed 'paranormal investigators' searching for a rousing ghost story to sell to Hollywood. Their story is recapped in a fair amount of detail, since it's been a while since we saw them.

Now.

Hee. Normal service is interrupted as the usual title card statics away to reveal Ed and Harry, wearing ill-fitting tuxedos, hamming lugubriously up as they introduce themselves to the camera. Ed's trousers are too short, and Harry's got on a technicolour bowtie, and it's just hilarious how hard they are trying and how seriously they take themselves and how ridiculous the result is.

"If you're received this tape you must be some sort of big-wig network executive. Well, today is your lucky day, mister."
"Because the unsolicited pilot you are about to watch is the bold new future of 'reality TV'"
Oh, and Harry's backward air quotes and all. Man.
"We know you've had it hard during the crippling writer's strike."
"Lazy fat cats."
"Who needs writers when you've got guys like us? Our team faced horrible horrors to bring you the footage that will change your world forever. So strap in for the scariest hour in the history of television."
"In the history of your life."
"Strap in for… [in unison] Ghostfacers!"

It's interesting and amusing that the Show feels able to comment on the strike like that, tongue firmly in cheek as they take a swipe at both sides of the dispute.

Cue…title sequence! It's got a nifty, stupidly catchy tune: 'Ghost. Ghost facers! We face the ghosts when the others will not!' And there's a whole team: Ed, Harry, Spruce, Maggie, Corbett…Sam and Dean. Curious.

Oh, and Sam as seen in this title sequence is diligently explaining something, and Dean is flipping someone off in irritation with his fingers blurred out so as not to actually be shown making obscene gestures on camera. Perfect.

Ed and Harry carry steel briefcases with Ghostfacer stickers as they climb out of a car and try to look like serious, moody professionals, miming a ludicrous slow walk toward camera rather than editing the footage into slo-mo. In voiceover, they prattle on about balancing daytime careers (at Kinkos) with their 'nightly missions', bragging that they pretty much call the shots – so much so that they can get away from work as shockingly early as six most nights. Yeah. But, they explain, "Two lone wolves need, uh…other wolves." Heh. I do enjoy how inarticulate these characters are, given that their passion is for finding stories to tell on screen.

Phase 1: The Homework.

Ed and Harry greet their 'Ghostfacer' team with cheery good mornings. Behind the camera, Spruce deadpans that it's 7pm. Harry doesn't skip a beat as he insists that: "it's always morning to a Ghostfacer." There's just no comeback to that. Corbett is busily sticking pages of research around the edges of a whiteboard. Ed bossily messes with his system to explain how he wants it to be done, but finishes up with a dismissive 'good job', playing at leader of the pack for all he's worth.

Then we get a little side interview with Corbett as he brings a couple of large brown paper bags stuffed with food into Ghostfacer HQ. The caption names him as Alan J. Corbett, Intern, Cook. He hero worships that he first saw Ed putting up flyers, read one, wondered where indeed ghosts come from, and now here he is. He's cute. Young, naïve and cute. You can practically see the red shirt already.

Another cut shows us Harry poking Maggie in the ribs, and Maggie retaliating with an irritated smack. It's affection, as expressed by twelve-year-olds. Harry complains to Ed that his sister is abusing staff. Ed doesn't even look up as he corrects that it's adopted sister, actually, and the camera pans back up in time to catch the hurt expression on Maggie's face on hearing that distinction stressed.

A large chunk of the camera work in this episode is carried out by Spruce, who, as befitting the role of cameraman, is therefore the least well defined of the Ghostfacer team. And, it has to be said, he's very good at this whole 'reality TV' thing, very good at spotting the human interest angle and then working it, heedless of tact or discretion. It isn't the most appealing character trait, however.

Another side interview as Maggie explains that Ed has been obsessed with the supernatural since they were kids. Maggie Zeddmore, Research Team, Adopted, says her caption. She is being interviewed while puttering around with some electrical equipment, so clearly knows her way around technical gear, whether she be as big a geek as her brother or not. It is unclear throughout just how much of her interest is genuine geekiness inherent to her personality, and how much of her motivation for tagging along after her big brother is because she wants to feel included, joining him in his geekdom in search of something they can share. "He met Harry at computer camp," she says. "Love at first geek." Heh.

Then Spruce turns the camera onto himself and pulls a few faces, before giving his origin spiel to a camera in the corner of his golf buggy as he drives around providing target practice for budding golfers, describing himself as 15/16 Jew and 1/16 Cherokee. Okay. He's a details man.

Ghostfacer HQ. 7.15 pm. Research Briefing

Back at HQ, Ed calls the gang to order and they start to discuss the mission they are working on. Ed describes Morton House as one of 'the big fish'. "We all know the legend. Every four years this house becomes supposedly the most haunted place in America." He drops his whiteboard marker as he speaks, which amuses me, especially since he carefully doesn't react to his own clumsiness.

Harry asides that it's called the 'Leap Year Ghost'. I'm so amused that the Show found a way to make use of the fact that this is a leap year. I'm also absolutely delighted that we are being told out loud what date this episode takes place on. Timeline references have been few and far between this season. The team exposit between them that this haunting kicks in at midnight, just as February 29^th begins, and no one has ever stayed the night since everyone who's tried has chickened out long before midnight. Ed brags that this is about to change, and the rest of the team seem just as pumped.

Ed is distracted by the drink Corbett just handed him, which is evidently much to his taste. Corbett is cutely pleased and abashed at the approval and babbles that he'd heard Ed liked French vanilla, so got it especially for him. Man, he's crushing hard. Ed is clueless. Spruce pans his camera around to catch the look of mistrust on Harry's face as he takes in this exchange, because Spruce has a keen nose for gossip, scandal and so-called 'human interest'.

"I like Corbett," Harry declares, in a side interview conducted in the front seat of his car. He appraisingly notes that Corbett shows up early and does his job, and is then interrupted by Corbett himself, who taps on the window to grin and wave at him enthusiastically. Aww, he's like a great big puppy. Tense, Harry acknowledges Corbett and waits for him to move past before continuing. "I think he's got the hots for Ed," he announces in doom-laden tones. "And that could spell trouble for the whole team."

Back to Corbett's side interview, he waxes lyrical about Ed's rugged good looks and beautiful golden beard, then realises what he's saying and tries to laugh it off in embarrassment. "And Harry's nice," he adds by way of afterthought.

Back to the briefing, Ed informs us that February 29^th is this Friday, so if they are going to take the mission, they have to start moving on it, because it'll be four years before they get another chance.

This dramatic statement is instantly punctured by chaos as the whiteboard falls off the wall, which starts moving of its own accord. The Ghostfacer team yell in alarm…. It's just Ed and Maggie's Dad arriving home, trying to get into his own garage. Heh. The look on his face is priceless. So now we really are completely up to speed on exactly who these Ghostfacers are in contrast to who they'd like to believe they are.

This episode is now 6 minutes old and, their brief appearance in the title sequence aside, we have yet to see Sam and Dean.

Phase II: Infiltration.

It's the night of February 28, and the Ghostfacer team arrive at Morton House, which is barricaded off to keep Joe Public out, since the place is falling to bits. Ed explains to Spruce's camera that a lot of people have tried to break in and the local authority got fed up, hence the fence and chained gate. He produces a pair of bolt cutters.

"Didn't you guys get, like, a permit, or something?" Maggie disbelieves. Aw, man. She totally believes what her brother tells her, rather than seeing what he really is.
"A permit? That's a good idea for next time," Harry notes. Hee.

Before Ed can cut the chain, the team startle on hearing a car approaching. Viewers start cheering at the distinctive sound of the Impala's engine. Oh, boys – it's been a long time. We've missed you. Oh, oh, oh, and classic rock! The classic rock is back! Oh, the joy.

The Ghostfacer team duck for cover, not wanting to be caught on the threshold of trespass. Spruce's camera zooms in and picks out Sam and Dean's faces for us, as they check out the house in passing. The camera work is wobbly, but man, it's good to see them! We're already 7 minutes into the episode!

If they hadn't been just returning to work after a lengthy lay-off during the strike, the actors would have been dying for the kind of break from their usual exhaustive work schedule this much guest character focus allows them.

"It's okay, not cops, just hicks," Ed dismisses as the Impala zooms away. Hee. He cuts the chain, and the Ghostfacers head into Morton House, with much carefully muted enthusiasm and wobbling of the camera as they run.

Inside. It's your typical Supernatural derelict house. 'There's the kitchen sink,' the Ghostfacers note. Heh. Ed and Harry call the team to order and announce that they will be setting up their base camp right there, command centre one. "We'll call this the Eagle's Nest," Harry enthuses.

Musical montage as the team all scurry about getting equipment set up and a variety of cameras into position. These are important for the provision of footage other than that from the camcorders carried by various members of the team. It's nifty that the structure of the episode allows that much coverage of the house from different angles, by presenting us with the Ghostfacer team as such techno-geek TV host wannabes, because it's completely believable that they'd have all this gear. It's who they are and what they do.

Corbett gets his camera hooked up first, "Looking good, Corbett," Ed notes, meaning the camera angle and speed of set up. Corbett flushes and babbles in delight, the words meaning something else entirely to him. Ed has no idea what to do with this reaction, and checks in with Spruce, Maggie and then Harry, as they also get their cameras hooked up also. "I can smell syndication," he exults.

Morton House, 10:40pm. Base Camp.

The Ghostfacers check their equipment, of which there is an abundance. Man. It's like if my brother packed up the entire contents of his bedroom and transferred it to a haunted house along with his mates from the Comic Guru. Everyone admires Corbett's 'robocop' outfit (looks more like Rambo to me, but whatever) and he is cutely pleased by the attention and flattery. Ed divides the group into two teams, and they all go through a hilarious little all for one Ghostfacer ritual before heading off on their assigned missions to the east and west of the house.

Phase III: Face Time!

Morton House, 10:51pm. 1^st Floor: Team One – Ed and Corbett.

Ed leads the way, torch in one hand, EMF in the other, calling out to the 'restless spirits of the Morton House.' Corbett follows, practically quivering with nerves. He's wearing a little camera on a pole, pointed at his own face, in addition to the one he's carrying. Corbett takes over calling out to the spirits as Ed studies his equipment and tries to look like he knows what he's doing. They're not finding any evidence of ghosts at all, but Corbett can still barely breathe, he's so scared. Both about jump out of their skin when they hear a noise in the hallway adjacent, and Corbett starts to hyperventilate. Ed decides they should switch to night vision, and also takes a moment to calm Corbett down before moving forward.

2^nd Floor: Team 2 – Harry, Spruce and Maggie.

Harry grandly explains to Spruce's camera that they are doing a "basic EMF, EVP, temp flux sweep. Looks like we've got all our ducks in a row here." Man, if he had any clue whatsoever what he's talking about. Static starts to affect the camera, to Spruce's puzzlement, but he has no idea of the significance of this and simply shrugs it off. On meeting a closed door, Harry gingerly pokes at it with a foot, without putting any effort into the kick whatsoever. Spruce suggests he try the knob, and Maggie impatiently zips in to do just that, rather than wait for Harry. Once she's turned the knob and opened the door, Harry quickly pushes it the rest of the way open with his foot, desperate to be caught on camera kicking a door open, even if he isn't really. I wish Harry got to see Dean really kicking a door down in this episode!

Harry has no sooner entered the room than he comes racing back out again, freaking out. There's a dead rat on the floor. Spruce and Maggie are unimpressed.

"I don't really like rats," Harry informs the camera, cutting back to that side interview he gave earlier. Ah, now there's a point he and Dean can agree on. "They're gross. Rats are like the rats of the world." Heh. So inarticulate.

Morton House. Harry blusters about spectral apparitions to cover his rat-induced freak out. Spruce tosses the dead rat at him and he screams like a little girl. Hee. Spruce is a stirrer.

Upstairs. Night vision is engaged as Ed and Corbett continue to explore, Corbett still breathing hard, absolutely terrified. He isn't in this for the glory or the adventure or because he is the slightest bit interested in ghosts. He is here because he wants to impress Ed and be noticed.

As Ed continues to breathlessly enthuse, Corbett's night vision goggles catch a glimpse of two tall figures at the end of the hallway.

"Freeze! Police officers! Don't move!"

Corbett starts wailing in terror, but viewers start dancing with glee, recognising that stern, gruff voice. Dean and Sam charge into the room, demanding to see some ID. I love that they are so convincing as police officers, despite not wearing anything that remotely resembles police uniform. It's all in the attitude. Corbett and Ed both snap to immediately, reacting instinctively to the authoritative command.

A moment later, however, the jig is up as Ed's brain kicks into gear, responding to an urgent memo from his memory. "I know you!" he realises. Dean just brushes him off, not so much as a hint of recognition, but Ed's not having any of it, not now he's remembered how and why he knows them.

"Holy bleep." Sam's memory has now kicked in as well, and whoa! The format – making the episode as the documentary the Ghostfacers have edited together post-adventure – allows for the use of rather stronger language than usual, because it can be censored, and the little skull over the mouth is an absolute scream!

There's something tremendously post-modern about this kind of internal meta, telling us that technically yes, the boys would use this language all the time if they weren't on the CW, but we don't get to see it. The use of the outsider's perspective and documentary-style format takes them out of their world, in which their language is by necessity more restrained – although I'm willing to bet that John would have drummed self-censorship into them anyway – and drops them into ours, where the bleep allows them a full range of expression.

"Uh, west Texas, the tulpa we had to take out? Those two goofballs that almost got us killed? Uh…hellhounds, or something?" Sam dredges his memory for a few details with which to jog Dean's. His recall is pretty impressive, really, although he doesn't get all the details right. It was a long time ago.

Ed recognises the Winchester brothers a lot more readily than they remember him, which is completely understandable and believable. Their shared experience in Texas – east, rather than west, Sam's memory of the event being far from perfect – was an epiphany for Ed. It was his first actual 'spirit'. It was his big break, a revelation: it was huge. For the brothers, on the other hand, it was just one more random job in a long string of random jobs they've worked over the years, and they've been through a hell of a lot since then. There's no reason for it to stand out in any way.

It tickles me that Sam's memory has the case filed away under the tag 'tulpa', after they referred to that tulpa by the name of the spirit it took the form of throughout. Sam's a details man, and that's the one that stands out. They've encountered a lot of spirits over the years, but only the one tulpa.

Stonefaced, Dean lets his flashlight play over Ed's face, and there's a fabulous shot from Ed's camera of the two brothers glaring at him. Then that little skull pops up over Dean's mouth as recognition dawns. "Bleep me."

Perfect reaction to running into these guys again, really.

Ed, pride stung, blusters that they aren't hellhounds any more, since the name didn't test well. Corbett tremulously asks Ed what's going on, and Ed scoffs that Sam and Dean aren't cops. Dean interrupts to recall that Ed had a partner last time. "Different guy. Is he around here somewhere?"

I love that detail, that he so rapidly regroups from the dismay of finding these guys here and so quickly takes stock of the situation, particularly the pressing need to account for any and every civilian that might be running around the building before getting on with the job.

Ed confirms that Harry is indeed around the building someplace, chasing ghosts. "Well, listen. You and Rambo need to get your girlfriend and get out of here," Dean firmly tells him.

Ed laughs. "All right. Listen here, Chisel Chest." Mwahahah. Oh man, the look on Sam's face, reacting to that. And that Dean's stony expression doesn't so much as flicker. "Okay, we were here first," insists Ed. "We've already set up base camp. We beat you." Like it's a game, rather than a matter of life and death. He so doesn't get it.

Dean digests this with a humourless chuckle, while Sam rolls his eyes. Then Dean grabs Ed and slams him against the wall, running out of patience fast. "Ed," he says, voice remarkably calm and patient, considering the power and violence of his reactions. "Where's your partner?"

2^nd Floor: Bedroom. Team 2 – Harry, Spruce and Maggie.

Harry's EMF meter is squealing merrily and he's getting excited about the readings. Maggie notes that the temperature has dropped something like eleven degrees. Harry calls her into the next room for a reading, leaving Spruce alone. He grumbles to himself as his camera starts to static out again, and then looks up just in time to see a man randomly appear in the middle of the room. He's wearing a 60s-style business suit, like he just stepped right out of the Man From Uncle, or something. Spruce hollers for the others as the man flickers, ghost-style, and they come dashing back into the room. The man spreads his hands and insists that he doesn't have any more money, then staggers backward screaming as he is shot by an unseen assailant. Finally he vanishes into thin air once more, leaving the Ghostfacers completely stunned.

Downstairs, Dean and Sam herd Ed and Corbett back to base camp, wondering just what they are doing at the Morton House on leap year in the first place. Ed shrugs that it's for their TV show, as if it should be obvious. "What? Great. Perfect," Sam snips. Corbett enthuses that nobody has ever spent the night before. Dean corrects him that yes, actually, they have. Ed insists that they've never heard of anyone staying the night. Dean snaps that the reason they haven't heard of anyone staying the night is because they didn't live to talk about it. I really love it when Dean gets all frustrated and annoyed about having clueless civilians underfoot who refuse to accept the danger they are in and do nothing but make his job harder.

Ed doesn't believe what he's hearing. Sam delves into the duffle bag he's carrying and hauls out a stack of papers – missing persons reports going back almost a half century. It kills me that the Ghostfacers have all this expensive equipment and don't know what they are doing, didn't even do a thorough job on the research, while Sam and Dean are so utilitarian in their approach, getting by with the bare essentials they need to do their job, and are oh, so effective at what they do. Sam talks Ed through the missing persons list he's put together, a long list of names of people who came to Morton House, usually on a dare, to spend leap year night, none of whom were ever seen again. The last owner of the house, Freeman Daggett, was the only body ever found. Sam is every bit as annoyed and frustrated as Dean. It's nice when they get to share stuff.

Ed is slightly dismayed as he acknowledges that Sam's research papers look legit. Sam snips that they are legit and there isn't much time. "Starting at midnight, your friends are going to die."

Way to lay it on the line.

Loud yells precede the arrival back at base camp of team two at this point, all of them hollering madly over the top of one another about their ghostly encounter. Corbett and Dean both instantly swing around to cover their arrival, Corbett with the camera and Dean with his shotgun. Such different priorities. The Ghostfacers babble incoherently at each other about the apparition, and then abrupt silence falls as the presence of Sam and Dean in the room is suddenly noticed. Someone's shoulder-cam gives us a brilliant shot of the brothers standing there in the murk, glowering.

"Hey. Aren't those the bleep from Texas?" Harry realises, recognising them as readily as Ed did. Internal meta and inside joke once again. Harry and Ed met Sam and Dean in Texas. Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki both come from Texas.

Ed confirms the brothers' identity. Sam and Dean roll their eyes at one another, unable to believe what they've walked into here, and Dean tries to reassert a little order, like a harassed and impatient teacher trying to reign in a bunch of rowdy pre-schoolers. "All right, let's have this reunion across the street, guys. Come on, come on. We'll get you ice cream, our treat, what do you say?" Dean just can't stop himself being a smartass when he's annoyed. The Ghostfacers ignore his attempt at getting them out of the house, too busy transferring their apparition footage onto a screen for everyone to see.

Someone's camera captures a nice shot of Dean and Sam standing behind the others watching the footage and absorbing it, sharing a meaningful glance. Then they wander away from the group, followed by Spruce's camera, for a private consultation that comes complete with subtitles. Spruce has a keen eye for where the hidden story is.

Sam: "Think we were off on this? That was just a death echo."
Dean: "Yeah, but what's it doing here? Did anybody get shot here?"
Sam: "No, not that I could find."

"What's a death echo?" Spruce interjects.

Sam ignores this question to announce to the group that they have a problem here. "And that ghost ain't it." Ah, Sammy. Since when do you say words like 'ain't'?

Sam's college experience must seem like another lifetime, something that happened to someone else, he's so far removed from it now. Being that person was once so important to Sam; now he no longer even tries. These days he just completely accepts who he is and what his life is. It's an awfully long time since he seriously contemplated the prospect of trying to achieve anything more. Hanging onto what little he has is a hard enough task these days.

Spruce firmly repeats his question. "What's a death echo?" Man, he's not giving up on that. He's not interested in being fobbed off or brushed aside, no matter what the danger. He wants the information – wants the dirt. Wants to make this TV show as juicy as possible. It's all about the scoop.

"Echoes are trapped in a loop, okay," Dean explains. "They keep replaying how they died over and over and over again, usually in the place they were ganked. It's about as dangerous as a scary movie."

"So maybe the echo's not dangerous, but maybe something else is," Sam sighs. Dean agrees and tries to hustle the Ghostfacers out of the building once more. Chaos ensues as the brothers try to get the little team moving, as there are a lot of personalities in the mix, and a lot of equipment they are unwilling to leave behind. They are surprisingly responsive in general to the tone of command, however, although Harry does petulantly wonder who put Sam and Dean in charge. It's a process not unlike herding cats, and comes to a screeching halt as Ed suddenly shouts for everyone to wait, and asks where Corbett is.

Upstairs – Corbett.

Corbett has gone looking for the ghost, all on his own. "I wish to communicate with the restless spirits here," he calls out. He's just so eager to win Ed's approval, to impress him and earn his love and respect. His camera starts to static out, which is never a good sign, and the light goes dead. Corbett is bemused, but untroubled, remembering aloud that he has night vision. He switches it on with the camera pointed at his face – and we see that there is someone else standing right behind him.

Downstairs. General chaos is interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from above. The Ghostfacers instantly erupt into panic-mode, sprinting upstairs toward the howls of their stricken companion. Dean and Sam yell after them, frustrated by their own inability to maintain control of the situation, and Sam curses again, neatly bleeped out with another nifty little skull over his mouth.

Upstairs. The Ghostfacers search for Corbett. Corbett's camera captures his terror as he is somehow dragged downward. It isn't clear how the ghost works, if it takes him physically down the stairs or just drags him right through the floor somehow, but it definitely seems like it is able to phase its victim out of kilter with the real world just enough to take him wherever it wants, regardless of obstacles – there's even greater evidence of this later, when Sam vanishes right from the middle of a crowded room. It's something we've seen with spirits before, H.H. Holmes in No Exit in particular. Corbett howls and howls the whole way, and his friends can hear him screaming, but can't see where he is to rescue him.

Morton House, 11.59pm.

Dean and Sam follow the Ghostfacers upstairs and sternly attempt to re-establish order as it becomes clear that Corbett is nowhere to be found. The Ghostfacers are hysterical, which doesn't make the process of herding them back downstairs any easier. The camera wobbling is at its worst here, which isn't the easiest thing to watch ever, but successfully conveys the chaos of the situation. It also allows for a fascinating insight into how Dean and Sam come across to the innocents they work so hard to protect – brusque, authoritative, aggressive and impatient. Dean rather more so than Sam, it has to be said, as Sam works his sympathy and sincerity mojo alongside his air of brisk authority.

Morton House, 12.04am. February 29^th.

Downstairs. Ed has a moment of despair, the leader of the group, with a man down on his watch, wondering how Corbett could have just disappeared. This is no longer a game; the life and death reality is hitting home hard. Spruce's camera pans past Dean and Sam, working on the front door out in the hallway, to focus for a moment on Harry and Maggie trying to regroup, playing around with their camera equipment in search of clues. But, having such a keen eye for where the more interesting story is to be found, he turns the attention of his camera back toward Sam and Dean.

"Well, it's 12.04, Dean," Sam snits. "You good? You happy?"
"Yeah, I am," Dean sardonically grunts, giving up on the door, which won't budge.
"'Let's go hunt the Morton House,' you said. 'It's our Grand Canyon'," Sam angrily mocks.
"Sam, I don't wanna hear it," Dean sighs.
"You've got two months left, Dean," Sam grates out. "Instead, we're gonna die tonight!"

With that, Sam picks up a chair and smashes it against the door in frustration. Whoa. It's such a tiny, tiny exchange, just five lines, but wow, it tells us absolutely everything we need to know about exactly where the brothers are right now, emotionally. They've been through a hell of a lot in recent episodes, and their time together is running out fast with no solutions anywhere in sight. With the trauma of Mystery Spot no doubt fresh in his memory, Sam is freaking out about how little time remains, and rightly so, at the same time as having come full circle back to that impulse we saw from him at the start of the season to indulge his brother's whims. He just got Dean back after experiencing six whole months without him, and is anticipating with dread the loss of his brother again very soon. He's not going to say no to anything Dean wants to do right now.

And apparently, what Dean wants to do right now is take in novelty hunts like this one: the leap year ghost. An old school haunting to celebrate the extra day in his year. Keeping busy, getting the job done, saving lives – it's the only way he knows how to cope with everything that's happened to him. I love the call back we get here to Dean's suggestion in Croatoan that the brothers visit the Grand Canyon by way of taking a holiday. With everything that's happened, it seems they never actually managed that, and it is unlikely now that they ever will. It was a season two suggestion, born of Dean's absolute exhaustion at that time. He's past that now, and with his time running short is evidently opting for the busman's holiday instead.

In addition, this scene definitively cements into place the timeline for season three and the end of season two. We already know that it is February 29^th in this episode. Now Sam tells us that Dean has two months left to live, which places the season two finale at the very end of April 2007, as I'd hypothesized in the timeline I drew up after season two ended. This is further confirmed by the recently published Season Two Companion, in which we learn that Sam was brought back to life on May 2^nd, his 24^th birthday.

Of course, tragically, what this detail means is that Dean is now due to die on Sam's birthday, which is just awful to contemplate. The Show does love to mess with dates and coincidences – we've already seen that Mary and Jessica each died 6 months to the day after Sam's birthday, and that Dean and Jessica shared a birthday.

Team Ghostfacer are rather alarmed by Sam's little show of frustration, and all come rushing out to see what's going on.

"I'll tell you what's going on," Sam seethes. "Every door, every window, I'm guessing every exit out of this house, they're all sealed."
"W-What? Why are they sealed?" Maggie stammers.
"It's a supernatural lockdown, okay," Dean wearily explains. Funny how up till now he's been the more alarming and unapproachable of the two, from an outsider's point of view, but now that Sam is throwing tantrums suddenly Dean looks like the reasonable one. "Whatever took Corbett doesn't want us to leave. And it's no death echo, this is a bad mother and it wants us scared."
"Or it just wants us," Maggie realises, scared.

Dean's EMF reader starts burbling to warn the group of something else supernatural in the offing. Spruce gets anxious as his camera starts to static out once more, and he's bright enough to realise by now that this is not a good sign. While he's messing about with the camera, he inadvertently catches a quick shot of Maggie and Harry holding hands for comfort, which is cute development from their bickering back in the safety of HQ. She's his best friend's sister – they have to have known one another for years. Ed's EMF is also going wild, as are all the computers in the room.

Sam warns everyone to stay close, since something is clearly coming. While the Ghostfacers are rapt in their equipment, Sam and Dean – both towering over them – keep their attention glued on their surroundings front and back, weapons at the ready. It's such a clear visual distinction between the professionals who face deadly spirits every day of their lives and the bumbling amateurs who just want to take pictures of the event.

Everyone gasps aloud as another man materialises in the middle of the room, caught on Spruce's camera. Sam asks if this is the same echo the Ghostfacers saw earlier, but no, it's a different guy. This means there are multiple echoes in the house, which has got Sam and Dean baffled.

Dean takes a moment to think, makes a decision, and then charges toward the ghost, yelling and getting right up in his face. "Hey! Hey, buddy! Wake up! You're dead! Hello!"

Harry asks what Dean is doing, and Sam explains that it's rare, but sometimes an echo can be shocked out of its loop. "You can talk to the part of the ghost that's still human. But usually you have to have some kind of connection to the deceased."

"Come on, wake up! Be dead!" Dean keeps trying, but the ghost is completely oblivious to him. It turns around as a train can be heard whistling someplace unseen. And then the ghost goes flying as an invisible train hits him. Nasty! "Whoa!" yells everybody in the room, and the chorus really tickles me. Caught on Spruce's camera, since he has an instinct for knowing where to zoom in and who to pan around to, Dean and Sam share a worried and mystified look.

Establishing shots of the outside of the Morton House.

The group make their way along a hallway, Dean mulling aloud over the fact that nobody ever got shot or hit by a train in the house, which makes the presence of the death echoes inexplicable. Sam cautions the others to stay close. Maggie asks if the echoes took Corbett. "Yes. No. I don't know. We don't know what's doing what here, that's what we're trying to figure out, okay?" Dean frustratedly tells her.

Sam repeats his instruction to stay close, back to being mild mannered again having vented his spleen and calmed down again. Then he takes pity on Maggie's need to understand what's going on and turns to walk backward for a few steps as he explains. Bless his heart, Sam has this instinctive urge to provide instruction. "Okay, look. Death echoes are ghosts, okay? Now ghosts, they usually haunt places where they lived or where they died."

"Except these mooks didn't live or die here," Dean interjects. Maggie wonders what they are doing here, then. "Hey, give the lady a cigar," Dean snarks, since that's the $64,000 question currently, and then curiosity gets the better of him. "All right, seriously, does looking at this nightmare through that camera make you feel better, or something?"

Maggie stutters a bit, and starts to lower the camera, but no sooner is the viewfinder away from her eye than she picks it back up again – managing a nice inadvertent pan up Dean's body so doing. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think so," she decides.

Dean nods and doesn't question the ever-present cameras again. He's still a little bemused by them, but he gets that these people feel more secure if they can feel detached from what's happening to them, which the use of those cameras allows. Watching the unfolding events through the camera lens keeps them one step removed from the action, something they are observing rather than being involved in, and that feels a lot safer.

Another room is entered and explored, this one with stuffed animal heads mounted all around the walls, just to add to the creep factor. Sam and Dean immediately start poking around like the seasoned pros that they are. Sam finds an old framed certificate belonging to the house's last owner, Freeman Daggett, who was officially commended for 20 years fine service at the Campbell General Hospital. He was a janitor. Dean notes that this looks like his den, and he and Sam exposit between them that Daggett died in '64 of a heart attack.

Maggie comments on the boxes and boxes of sea rations stacked up against the wall. Army issue, Dean confirms, a lifetime supply. Maggie is a little grossed out at the thought of that being all the man ate. "One stop shopping," Dean lightly tosses back, not so easily disturbed by the insanity of mankind, having encountered it so frequently. He then finds and is distracted by a locked cabinet, and sets about trying to get it open.

Ed is unravelling a little, and starts to rant about how this isn't helping them find Corbett and they should be digging up the floorboards by now.

"Huh. 'Survival under Atomic Attack'," Sam reads aloud the title of a pamphlet he's found. "An optimist." Mwahah. I love Sam's very special brand of snippy sarcastic humour. He can be so very caustic.

With much clanging, Dean manages to get the cabinet open, pulls out a box, and turns around to find Ed waving an EMF meter right in his face. He glares until Ed backs off. Hee. Inside the box is an assortment of papers, which Dean sifts through. He pulls out a book on taxidermy, and then recalls that Daggett was a hospital janitor. "Eww," he grumbles, telling Sam that he's found three toe tags. Death by gunshot, train accident and suicide.

"Eww," Sam agrees, instantly reaching the same conclusion as his brother. Ed and Harry, standing opposite, want to know what all this ewwing is about. They don't have Sam and Dean's in-depth understanding of how the supernatural operates, haven't been trained all their lives to piece together fragments of evidence the way the Winchesters were.

"Well, that explains why all the death echoes are here," Sam explains. They still don't get it, so he has to elaborate: "They're here because their bodies are here. Somewhere in the house."
"Daggett brought the remains home from the morgue. To play," Dean finishes for him, grim, turning to look Spruce's camera full in the lens.
Spruce pans the camera back around to take in Ed and Harry's faces as they digest the implications. "EEWWWWW!"
"That's nasty, dude," Spruce agrees from behind the camera.

Dean glances up from the paperwork he's perusing, casts his eyes over the civilians in the room still reacting to the grossness of purloined corpses and amateur taxidermy, and realises that one is missing.

In another room, Maggie has struck out on her own in search of Corbett, absolutely petrified but foolhardy enough to give it a try, rather than remain with the investigative remainder of the group. Her own reflection startles her, as she stumbles upon a mirror in the dark, and then static interference on her camera causes viewers to fear for her safety as she turns to find someone standing right behind her.

"Closer to the herd, okay?" It's Dean, at his absolute sternest. I like that he hasn't so much as glanced sideways at Maggie throughout his episode, 100% per cent professional when lives are at risk. If he met Maggie anywhere outside of a haunted house he might try flirting with her, but right here and right now she is just another foolhardy civilian who has got herself into danger and that he now has to protect, and who is inciting his further disapproval by not making the job any easier.

Harry comes charging after Dean, fearful for Maggie's safety. Dean assures him that she's fine, and then Ed – Maggie's brother, who is apparently less concerned – calls his friend to announce another EMF spike. The cameras are struck by ghostly static once more, Dean calls for nobody to move, everyone to stay together, and then between one fritz of the camera and the next Sam disappears, leaving nothing behind but his flashlight.

It's really striking how sudden and silent Sam's disappearance is in contrast to Corbett's. Corbett screamed every step of the way. Sam just vanishes in the blink of an eye, without a sound, chosen from the group apparently at random. So was Corbett de-materialised in the same way, just more vocally? Or does the spirit employ slightly different tricks depending on how many people are in the room?

"Sam?" Dean notices his brother's absence immediately. While the shocked Ghostfacers babble at one another about energy surges and whatnot, Dean is scouring the room for any trace of his brother, alarm levels rising by the second. It's very reminiscent of his initial reaction in both The Benders and All Hell Breaks Loose, when Sam likewise disappeared without trace, the way he keeps a very tight reign on his panic for the first few moments while he reacts and tries to figure out what just happened. He picks up Sam's dropped flashlight and bellows for his brother.

"SAMMY!" Dean's panic hits full force as he charges through corridors shouting for his brother. This is the moment his priorities switch – up till now he's been focused on getting these people out of the house safely as his first and foremost concern, but they have to take their own chances now, by and large, because the only thing that matters to Dean from here on in is finding and saving Sam.

Dean must be so, so tired of Sam disappearing on him! This is how many times now?

While Dean charges from room to room bellowing for Sam, the Ghostfacers trail in his wake also shouting, both for Sam and for Corbett, Dean's panic giving licence to theirs.

Spruce's camera catches sight of Maggie and Harry together on the other side of a broken wall, and he stops, surreptitiously recording their interaction. Maggie whimpers her fear, and Harry attempts to reassure her, which would work better if he didn't sound so scared himself. He inches closer, and they kiss, the moment captured on Spruce's camera. Creepily, Spruce starts murmuring porno music under his breath, as he watches. Such a pervert. Spruce embodies the essence of reality TV more than any other character in this episode – capturing shocking or titillating footage on film is way, way more important to him than respecting anyone's privacy, whether that of strangers or his friends.

Ed comes over to see what Spruce is looking at, and finds his best friend snogging his sister. And, for all that he has been as dismissive of Maggie throughout as older siblings tend to be of their pesky juniors, the moment he claps eyes on the couple his protective and indignant older brother instincts kick in.

Harry and Maggie guiltily leap apart the moment they become aware that they are being watched. Ed gapes at them in disbelief. "My best friend, and my best sister," he grits. Harry tries to calm him down. It doesn't work. "Are you banging my sister?" Ed demands, angry and betrayed at the thought of it. Maggie scoffs indignantly, and Harry vehemently denies the charge. Quivering with rage, Ed hands his glasses to Spruce, who eagerly keeps the camera rolling, and then charges at his best friend. It's a bitchslapping fight worthy of Jerry Springer, Ed and Harry flapping at each other like a couple of chickens in a hen house and Spruce enthusiastically filming, until Dean comes storming over to break it up. He earns himself another skull over the mouth, as he demands to know what the bleep they are doing. "We're down by two people," he angrily points out, shaking his head in disbelief at their antics as he swings back around and strides away once more, resuming his shouts for Sammy.

Harry apologises to Ed, who isn't in the most forgiving mood ever as he retrieves his glasses from Spruce and quietly seeks assurance that he won the fight. Harry and Maggie express their disdain for Spruce as they trail away in Dean's wake, leaving a defensive Spruce to bring up the rear.

Elsewhere. The night vision on Corbett's camera is picking out a cake and fruit bowl as 'it's my party and I'll cry if I want to' plays tinnily in the background. Corbett's other camera is pointing at his face as he slumps unconscious in a chair, blood trickling from his head.

Sam's voice can be heard urgently calling to him from somewhere out of eyeshot. Corbett slowly stirs and raises his head, and Sam comes into focus at the other end of the table they are both sitting at, each tied to his respective chair. Sam is also looking decidedly worse for wear, bloody and bruised, but is in better shape than the concussed and confused Corbett. "You've got to keep listening to my voice," he urges. "I'm right here. Stay awake."

"Don't listen to him," another voice cuts in. "It stops hurting, so don't worry."

Corbett turns his head slightly to take in a couple of gross mummified corpses sitting at the table wearing party hats, and the spirit of Freeman Daggett standing behind them, picking up a scary looking implement from the table. Corbett whimpers with terror as Daggett moves behind him, and Sam keeps talking, keeps urging the younger man to stay with him, to stay awake – verbal reassurance is all he has to offer, trussed up as he is. Then his tone hardens into fear and anger as he shouts at the spirit to stop what he's doing…too late. That scary looking implement punctures the back of Corbett's neck at the base of the skull and is thrust right through and out the other side. It's gross. And aww, man, Sam had to watch that, and he's already been having issues around helplessness and the saving of lives. He bellows his rage and despair as Corbett gurgles and chokes on his own blood. Corbett's death is captured on his own cameras as he slumps against his bonds.

Upstairs. The terrified Team Ghostfacer continue to call out for their missing companions as they follow Dean back through the various hallways of Morton House to Daggett's den. Harry wonders what Dean is doing as he starts rifling through Daggett's papers once more.

"Daggett was a Cold War nut. Okay." Dean thinks aloud, brain in overdrive. "He was an amateur taxidermist. He liked to slow dance with cadavers, and all he ate was sea rations. So what the hell are we looking for?" Maggie laments that it was a horrible life. "A lonely life," Dean corrects, putting the pieces together. He's good at investigation, and very familiar with human frailty. "Cold War life. He was scared."

Realising what he needs to be looking for, what their much-interrupted searching of the house so far has failed to unearth, Dean charges out of the room again. The confused Ghostfacers chase after him once more, asking what's going on, what he's talking about. They just don't have the knowledge or understanding to reach the conclusions that Dean can put together based on the evidence he finds in a house like this. They also have to run to catch up, afraid of being left behind, since, however aggressive and authoritarian he can be, they feel much safer in his presence. Dean really has stopped caring what happens to them, though – Sam in danger trumps all other concerns, and always has.

Hidden cellar. The sideways night vision of Corbett's camera gives us an uneven shot of Sam, still tied to his chair, fear in his voice as he tells Daggett to get away from him. The spirit looms into shot, assuring him that this won't hurt. As he bends over Sam, he blocks the camera so that we can no longer see what he's doing, but we just saw him murder Corbett so know that Sam is in real danger here, and for all that it seems safe to say Sam isn't going to be killed off (again) any time soon, it's still a genuinely scary moment.

Then the ghost steps back to reveal that he has placed a party hat on Sam's head, set at a jaunty angle. The footage is grainy and distant, but the look of impotent fury and fear on Sam's face is perfect.

If numerous people have vanished from the house, and they were all brought down here to be murdered, shouldn't there be more corpses in evidence? There's just Sam, Corbett, and the three stolen from the morgue, at least that I can make out.

Upstairs. Dean leads the troops down to the cellar, explaining as he goes. "Guys like Daggett, the ones that were really scared of the Ruskies, they built bomb shelters; I'm guessing he's got one. I'll bet you it's in the basement."

I really love seeing SmartDean in evidence; the Show doesn't always remember how good he has to be to do this job as well as he does. His education might have been patchy, but he knows a lot more than he generally lets on outside of emergency situations – and gaps in his historical knowledge tend to be played up more around Sam than anyplace else, playing dumb just to enjoy his brother's reaction. Here, in the midst of the crisis, he's very matter of fact about what he knows.

Spruce follows Dean through the door leading down to the basement, which promptly slams shut behind them. Consternation ensues, with Ed and Harry on the outside and Spruce on the inside instantly blaming each other. Dean advances their education by explaining that the ghost shut the door, that it wants to separate them.

"Ed, listen to me," Dean calls through the door. "There's some rock salt in my duffle. Make a circle and get inside."
Ed and Harry look at one another, completely baffled. "Inside your duffle bag?"
"In the salt, you idiot!" Dean yells, exasperated.

Mwahahah. Aww, man. This is such a perfect example of the outsider perspective putting us firmly in our place and reminding us just how far off beat the brothers' lives really are. We, as viewers who have followed the adventures of Sam and Dean for almost three seasons now, understand exactly what Dean means here. And Dean, who takes his knowledge of the supernatural completely for granted, also knows exactly what he means, of course. But it is far from being obvious to the clueless and terrified uninitiated such as Harry and Ed.

Suitably chastened, Ed and Harry make shift to do as they are told. Dean and Spruce continue down into the basement.

At base camp, Harry completes the circle of salt, and jumps inside to join Ed and Maggie. It's a tight fit, the three of them huddled together. Harry tremulously confesses that he doesn't want to die, and tries to tell Ed that he doesn't want him to die angry, or whatever, but Ed interrupts. "If we don't die, it's totally okay if you, uh, do my sister."

Heh. He totally deserves the smack Maggie gives him for that. And then the equipment starts to stutter and static again, and Maggie's camera captures a marvellous close-up shot of Ed and Harry's faces pressed together as they huddle in fear. Then it all goes quiet, and they turn around to see that another death echo has joined them.

It's Corbett. He's standing there right in front of them, bleeding and whimpering in fear, choking and gurgling, and they are absolutely horrified.

Basement. As previously noted, Spruce has a keen eye for a good story, and takes advantage of being alone with Dean to question him a little about that private conversation with Sam that was caught on camera earlier. "Earlier, you and Sam. He said you had two months left?"

Dean is busy scouring the room for any sign of a hidden bomb shelter, and is so distracted by the situation and circumstances that he starts to respond to the question before he's properly registered it. "It's complicated. A while ago, Sam…" He sees the camera in Spruce's hand, pointed at him, remembers the purpose that brought the Ghostfacers here, and catches himself before letting anything personal slip. "No, no, no. I'm not going to whine about my bleep problems to some bleep reality show. I'm going to do my bleep job."

"Is it…cancer?" Spruce presses.
"Shut up," Dean snaps, back to the camera.

There's that outsider's perspective again, operating from a baseline of completely different preconceptions and expectations than the Winchesters or their regular viewers. Spruce hears that someone has just two months left to live and an illness like cancer seems the obvious culprit. Because he's a normal guy, who can't even begin to conceive of the kind of things Dean and Sam have been through all their lives. It reminds us just how extreme and surreal and wrong it is to make deals with demons, how very far the Winchester brothers are from anything approaching normal. The chances of either of them ever being able to lead any kind of normal life again, even if Dean's deal and the demon war went away tomorrow, are slim to remote.

It's also worth noting, again, that throughout this scene Spruce is just standing there filming, completely passive, while Dean is actually working, pro-active, searching for a solution to the problem at hand, which is finding and saving Sam and Corbett. He comes to a standstill alongside a heavy metal cabinet. "You hear that?"

Bomb shelter. The music is still playing, that one song over and over. 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.' Daggett, scary-looking implement in hand, towers over Sam intoning that he gets lonely. "But you're coming to my party, aren't you?" Sam strains against his bonds.

Basement. Spruce can hear the music as well. Dean reckons it is coming from behind the wall and strains to shift the heavy cabinet. Spruce steps well back, so he can keep filming. It never once occurs to him that he could put the camera down and get involved: help with the heavy lifting. Dean doesn't bother asking, he just heaves and hauls and manages to move it by himself. Then again, Dean does have a long history of trying to handle everything on his own rather than ask for help if it isn't offered. Sometimes even when it is offered.

"Wow, you're strong," Spruce admires. Irritated, Dean gives him the finger – neatly blurred out in post-production – and well deserved it is, too.

Bomb Shelter. Daggett steps behind Sam, who he expects to be staying with him for a long time, and presses that scary-looking implement against the back of his neck, just one sharp shove away from oblivion.

Basement. There's a hidden door behind the cabinet. Dean picks the lock and charges through, bellowing for his brother. Startled, Daggett steps away from Sam, and Dean blasts him with the rock salt. That's what they call 'in the nick of time'!

Dean rushes past Corbett's slumped body to free his brother, who is gasping with relief at the narrow escape he just had. Spruce doesn't seem to notice Corbett at first, zooming in on the various other corpses in the room, all complete with party hats, celebrating Daggett's leap year birthday with him. Then he finally sees the body of his friend and is horrified.

Upstairs. Ed, Harry and Maggie sit on the floor in their ring of rock salt, Ed rocking back and fore with distress as he blames himself for Corbett's death. I like that. I like that he's taking responsibility for having led the others here on this disastrous mission. He might not be able just yet to push through that despair into action, but the fact that he feels it so keenly is a point in his favour. Harry tries to comfort him, and muses aloud that Corbett has become a death echo, reliving his own murder. "Over and over, forever," Maggie realises. Ed looks horrified.

Basement. Spruce wonders what Daggett's problem is, anyway.

"Loneliness," Sam says, tersely.
"What? Has he never heard of a real doll?" Dean snarks.
"No, Daggett was the Norman Bates, stuff your mother kind of lonely," Sam explains, gingerly touching his bruised eye. "That's why he lifted these bodies from the morgue, threw himself a birthday party. 'Cept they were the only ones who would come. Anyway, so at midnight, he sealed them in the bomb shelter and went upstairs and OD'd on horse tranqs."
"How do you know this?" Dean wonders, since their research revealed none of these gruesome little details.
"'Cause he told me," Sam sniffs.

Ah, poor Sammy. He only came here in the first place because he's back in that 'indulge Dean's last dying wishes' phase again, in the wake of Mystery Spot and with only two months left on the clock, and he ended up getting snatched and battered, had to watch an innocent boy being murdered right in front of him – and he's been having serious control and lack thereof issues for a couple of years now already – and then had his shoulder cried on by a ghost. Not Sam's best night ever.

"Okay, so now that he's dead, what? Same song, different verse," Dean reasons. "Trying to get people to come to his party?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Sam agrees, casting a sombre glance back at Corbett's corpse. "Stay forever."

Dean reloads the shotgun, and Spruce queries the ammunition. Dean impatiently clarifies that the shells are filled with rock salt, but doesn't offer any detail on just why. He's had enough of Spruce and his questions, and of all the Ghostfacers and their ignorance.

Upstairs.

Harry is quietly singing the Ghostfacer theme tune to himself. Ed is still rocking a little. The camera image starts to flicker into static once more, signalling the reappearance of Corbett's death echo. The trio are again stricken at the sight of their dead friend as he whimpers in mortal terror. Then Ed manages to join the dots and realises something. "Wait, guys. Guys. It's Corbett. He's trapped, he's in a lot of pain, you know. We've gotta try and…try and pull him out of his loop. We have to."

I like this line of development for Ed. He's still the same guy we met back in Hell House: immature, self-important and self-absorbed, too busy seeing what he wants to get out of a given situation to appreciate the big picture or to distinguish what can be done from what should be done. But he has put this team together – with Harry's help, sure, but he's the leader. He has taken responsibility for these people and their lives, and since the situation imploded in their faces that responsibility has been weighing on him. Here we see him taking the next step, recalling information provided by the Winchesters and applying it to the situation at hand to find a way to help a friend in pain, to ease the suffering of one of his men.

Ed jumps to his feet, all purposeful and afraid, and tries calling to Corbett. But Corbett shows no sign of hearing him, and Ed realises he's going to have to step outside the ring of salt. Harry doesn't want him to do it, but Ed is determined to do what he can for Corbett and tentatively steps over the line.

"Corbett, listen to me," Ed calls out, stepping closer to the newly created ghost. "Okay, I'm not going to hurt you. Listen. Listen." But the spirit is unresponsive, flickers madly, and Ed scurries back toward the safety of the salt circle, defeated. "I can't, okay. He's not hearing me, okay, he won't stop dying!"

Basement. Dean is attacking the sealed basement door with a pipe, trying to get out. Standing just behind him, Sam glances down the steps to see Spruce with his camera still rolling. "Seriously? You're still shooting?" he disbelieves.

"It makes them feel better. Don't ask," Dean replies on Spruce's behalf. I love that he gets it. He doesn't approve, but he gets it, gets that staying behind the camera allows the Ghostfacers to feel removed from their situation, thereby cushioning the culture shock and fear.

Keeping the camera rolling also means that Spruce gets early warning of the static variety of the spirit's next attack, not that it saves him from getting flung back down the stairs. Daggett advances menacingly, but Sam rushes downstairs and dispels him with a quick blast of rock salt before he can reach Spruce.

Upstairs. Harry has his own moment of profound realisation, suddenly understanding how they – or rather, Ed – can get through to Corbett. This is Harry's moment of growth, because he's been so suspicious of Corbett's feelings for his friend but must now set his prejudices and jealousy aside for Corbett's sake. He struggles to get the words out, though, and there is much reliance on meaningful gestures and eyebrows, but he finally manages to convey his meaning to the clueless Ed. "And you know what you've got to do. You can do it, Ed. You've always been the brave one, yes you can. You make us brave. Maggie, right? [Maggie backs him up.] Ed. You've got to go be gay for that poor dead intern. You've got to send him into the light!"

Ed gathers his strength and approaches Corbett once more. Maggie follows him, much to Harry's alarm, but she whispers that it will be okay and takes her camera to capture the moment, and possibly also as a gesture of support for her brother.

"Corbett, look, it's just Ed, buddy. It's just me," Ed offers, fumbling for the right words, tears trickling down his cheeks. "Corbett, listen to me. We…okay. You meant, Corbett, you meant a lot to the team. You meant a lot to me. You don't ever, ever back down, never say a bad word. Okay, I remember that, Corbett. I remember that. I remember because I love you, Corbett. I really, truly love you."

And Corbett stops whimpering, and his eyes start to focus on Ed, seeing him standing there for the first time. "You remember that? Do you?" Ed presses. Corbett manages to say Ed's name, surprised, and tearful. "Yeah, Corbett. It's me. Look at me" Ed urges. "You have to help us, man. You have to help us, Corbett, please. Please. Please help us."

Just how Ed thinks Corbett can help them is unclear.

Basement. "Take it easy. You all right?" Sam picks Spruce up after his little tumble. But the camera immediately fritzes out once more, and settles to reveal Daggett standing right behind Dean, who is at Sam's shoulder. Spruce's reflexes aren't great, so that by the time he's drawled out the start of a warning, Daggett has already picked Dean up and hurled him into a handy nearby wall. Ah, wall tossing and Dean – such a classic. Also, those two actors have tussled before, way back in an early episode of Dark Angel season two.

Sam yells a furious protest, but is unable to bring his gun into play before Daggett tosses him, too. Then he advances on Spruce, who quavers in fear as static interrupts his picture yet again.

This time, however, Daggett looks confused by the interference. He turns around to see the ghost of Corbett standing behind him. Spruce is amazed. GhostCorbett wastes no time – he sprints right at Daggett. As he does so, we catch a glimpse of his slumped corpse still sitting at the table, a gruesome reminder of what this spirit is capable of. The two ghosts collide and dissolve on impact into a cloud of dust, and there's a huge flash of light.

Spruce's camera blanks out for a second, and when the picture returns both ghosts have gone. Spirits destroying one another is something of a recurring theme on this show – I can think of numerous other examples stretching all the way back to the Pilot.

"All right, dude?" Spruce calls out as Dean regains his senses and gingerly picks himself back up. "You all right?" Spruce pans back around to Sam, also picking himself up off the floor. The camera keeps rolling, and he doesn't think to offer either brother a hand as they struggle back to their feet. He's here as an observer, and has no interest in participation. The brothers ignore him completely as they move toward one another. For each of them, checking on the physical well being of his brother post-skirmish is a priority at all times. Spruce expresses his relief that it's all over, and the brothers notice the rolling camera. Tolerance exhausted, Dean shoves his hand over the lens.

Dawn breaks. We are treated to a prettyful shot of the Impala, peacefully parked outside the Morton House, the sun rising behind her. Already outside capturing a few establishing shots, Spruce turns his camera toward the door as the others make their way out of the house. Ed first, followed by Sam and Dean – Dean rolling his eyes resignedly as he sees the camera still rolling – and finally Harry and Maggie, who hug one another, shell-shocked by the events of the night.

"Leap Year, February 29^th," Ed voiceovers. "The Morton House. A tragic day. A day of souls bound in torment, of lives held in cruel balance. But the Ghostfacers, they did the best that they could."
"We lost a beloved friend, but we gained new allies." Harry takes up the narrative, as we see Sam handing a piece of paper with his cell number scrawled on it to Ed, with a reassuring clap on the shoulder, fellow survivors of a hellish experience.
"We know this much," Ed continues, as Sam nods a farewell to Spruce's camera. "That every day, including today, is a new beginning."

And we are back where we began, Ed and Harry in their ill-fitting suits, telling their story to the camera.

"We learned more than we can ever say, in the brutal feat of the Morton House," Ed intones.
"The Ghostfacers were forced to face something far more scary than ghosts," Harry adds. "They were forced to face themselves."
"War changes man." Ed offers the camera a Bush-esque thumbs up.
"And Maggie," Harry quickly interjects.
"War changes man," Ed repeats. "And one woman." Then he drops the pompous act and looks down at his hands. "You know, Corbett, we just…oh gosh. We just like to think that you're out there watching over us."

I think I kinda love Ed, which I'd never have expected after Hell House. The actor absolutely rocks this scene – the combination of pretentious pomposity and genuine, heartfelt emotion is perfect.

"As far as we're concerned," says Harry, keeping up the pompous act, but with sincerity behind it. "You're not an intern any more. You have more than earned full Ghostfacer status. Plus, it'd be cool to have a ghost on the team."
"Yeah," Ed grins. "And here we were thinking that, you know, we were teaching you, and all this time you were teaching us. About heart, and about dedication, and…about how gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day. Thank you, Alan J. Corbett."
"Go well into that starry night, young Turk," Harry portentously adds, to Ed's bemusement. "Go well."

Then, in final tribute to Corbett, we see a side interview with him as he loads up the van ready to set out on that final, fateful mission. He protests Spruce's presence with the camera, distracting him from his packing. Spruce tells him to pack and talk at the same time. Corbett doesn't know what to say. Spruce tells him to say what comes to mind. If any of these guys has a future in journalistic television, it's Spruce. He's got the persistent and clinically detached observer thing down. He presses that this is one of their confessional moments, and asks Corbett what he thinks is going to happen on this trip. Corbett gives up the protest and faces the camera, all cute and innocent and puppy-like. I just realised who he reminds me of. He looks a lot like the late Jonathan Brandis, of seaQuest DSV fame.

"I think tonight, I really do, I think all our dreams are going to come true," Corbett says, with a cute little smile. "Does that sound stupid?" Spruce admits that it kind of does, and Corbett laughs, bashful, and mugs happily for the camera.

'In Memory of Alan J. Corbett, 1985-2008. King of the Impossible,' the final title card reads.

Then the camera pulls back, and we're on 38 minutes, and for the first time in this episode we are out of the Ghostfacer documentary and back into normal service. Dean and Sam have been watching the programme on Ed and Harry's computer. Now that it is finished, they stare at the screen for a long, long moment, digesting and processing. The Ghostfacer team are assembled behind them, waiting for their reaction. And now the show's normal credits are played, right at the end, so that their presence won't disrupt the narrative integrity of the format used for this episode. I love that attention to detail.

Ed finally decides that the silence has gone on long enough and asks the brothers what they think. Dean and Sam are lost for words, and share a series of meaningful, highly amused glances before Dean drops his head into a hand, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. "You know, I kinda think it was half awesome," he decides.

"Half awesome! That's full-on good, right?" Maggie enthuses, and the other Ghostfacers are equally delighted by the praise.

Dean glances at Sam, who nods, silent communication in full force. "Yeah," Sam agrees, picking up the conversation to distract the Ghostfacers' attention from Dean as he pushes his duffle bag under the table. "I mean, it's bizarre how y'all are able to, ah, honour Corbett's memory while grossly exploiting the manner of his death, well done."
"Yeah, that's a real tight rope you guys are walking," agrees Dean.

Heh. That's the reality TV industry in a nutshell.

Maggie looks a little perturbed at the words, as the brothers make for the door, but Ed has regained his equilibrium. "No, it's reality, man," he defends. "Yeah, Corbett gave his life searching for the truth, and it is our job over here to share it with the world."

"Right," says Sam. "Well, um, our experience, you know what you get when you show the world the truth?"
"A straight jacket." Dean finishes the sentence for him. "Or a punch in the face. Sometimes both."
"Come on, guys, don't be Facer haters because we happen to have got the footage of the century," Harry scoffs. Facer haters. Mwahahah.

It seems callous, this attitude, to so blithely return to normal after everything they went through, just carrying on as if nothing happened – exploiting the manner of Corbett's death for their own self-aggrandisement, as Sam said. And it is callous and insensitive, but that denial is what they need, for the same reason that they needed to keep the cameras rolling while they were in the house. It's a coping mechanism. Reducing that horrific experience and tragedy to a story that can be watched on TV makes the danger and the monsters less real and therefore less scary. They can continue to hide behind that camera lens, tell themselves that they are doing it for Corbett and that they did a good job, convince themselves that it wasn't really real, and move on. Not everyone has what it takes to face the supernatural head on.

As in Hell House, Dean and Sam feel no need to try to explain themselves or the realities of their business to these misguided amateurs; any such attempt would be pointless and counter-productive, and it's enough for them to share their amusement and bafflement with each other. The truth is the last thing the Ghostfacers want or need, that much is obvious. So the boys just say their farewells and make their exit. "Dicks," Harry dismisses, once they are out of earshot. The others agree, and they start making plans for the copying and distribution of their show and their glittering future.

Ed discovers the bag Dean left under the desk. "Menuda left their dance bag behind," he mocks, and the group all laugh as he opens the bag to see what's inside. He pulls out a large electromagnet, a typical Dean-style lash-up, and even I immediately know that this is a Very Bad Thing to have anywhere near computer hard drives. Strangely, for such techno-geeks, it takes the Ghostfacers a moment to realise what is happening as all their equipment immediately starts to shut down and reboot itself. Comprehension soon dawns, however, and consternation abounds.

Outside, Dean and Sam hurry to the Impala and jump in. "We clean?" Sam wonders, just as a howl of anguish can be heard from the house. Pleased with their success, the brothers share a quick grin and jump in the car.

"Electro-magnet. I wiped out every tape and hard drive they have," Dean reports, pleased with his success.

I love SmartDean. Just in case anyone hasn't already noticed that. In Born Under a Bad Sign, of course, he didn't seem to have any idea how to wipe a computer hard drive, but we should remember that he was in the throes of his worst nightmare at the time, and didn't exactly have time to go away, come up with a creative solution and return to set it in place, just needed a fast, dirty fix before attempting to make a clean getaway. This time around, he's had plenty of time to figure out what to do, improvise the equipment, and set the plan in motion.

"World just isn't ready for the Ghostfacers," Sam agrees.

No, it isn't. But also, despite both being listed as legally dead in the wake of Jus in Bello, the brothers still can't afford to have their faces captured on film in this way. After all, Dean was listed as legally dead once before only to have the crimes committed by his doppelganger come back to bite him again later. Allowing that footage to enter circulation of any kind is a risk they simply can't afford to take.

"It's too bad," Dean admits. "I kind of liked the show."
Sam laughs. "Had its moments."

Their business here complete, the brothers drive away, to the Ghostfacer theme tune. Mwahahah.

It's so nice to have an episode run to a full 40 minutes for once this season. It's nicer still to see the brothers in such perfect harmony in this episode. Even from the uninformed perspective of that outsider point of view we've had throughout, it has been obvious how utterly at ease they are with one another: completely in synch, the perfect well oiled team. There are massive ongoing issues hanging heavily over both their heads, but just at the moment those are not causing any problems for the relationship they have with one another. Dean spent the early episodes of the season deeply mired in denial, but ever since confronting his own worst fears in Dream a Little Dream of Me, he has been more at peace with himself than I think we've ever seen him. He's no longer hiding anything. And Sam, for all the secrets and burdens that he is carrying, is evidently still cresting on the wave of relief that came from Dean being returned to him at the end of Mystery Spot, although he is just as clearly teetering on the brink of breakdown over how little time remains to them.

There are huge, huge issues lying ahead for the brothers, with only two months left before Dean's crossroads deal comes due, and only three episodes of the season remaining. Right here and right now, though, they are still able to live in the moment, to make the most of the time that they have together – even though their idea of quality time, such as taking on this 'novelty hunt' in the first place, is all kinds of screwed up. The case went to hell in a hand basket and a sweet young guy got killed…and yet this qualifies as light relief. Breathing space, both for the brothers and for us, before the realities of an ongoing demon war and Dean's impending date with his demonic debt collector raise their ugly heads once more.

Three episodes left of season three; they are going to be awesome, I've no doubt.


May 2008

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