SKIN

Previously

Lots of shots mom and Jessica burning on the ceiling and Sam and Dean rekindling their relationship as they hunt for Daddy Winchester. This must have been after a long hiatus

Now

Inagaddadavida blares as we pan through a home. We see a SWAT team entering cautiously, laser sights racing. We see blood smeared on the wall and a very bloody blond girl tied to a chair. The SWAT team and their frenetic laser sights continue through the house until they find their quarry sneaking out the window. He turns around, and it's frigging Dean! Looking very evil and holding a bloody knife

One Week Earlier

We open in the car. Dean is talking and Sam is ignoring him. Dean makes an obligatory crack about Sam wearing women's underwear to try to get his attention.

Sam, it seems, is busy checking emails from his college buddies, which Dean says is stupid. "A job like this, you can't get close to people, period."

But Sam's email habit brings them a lead on a case. A girl Sam knows from school--Dean asks if she's hot--says her brother has been accused of a murder he didn't commit. DNA, fingerprints, everything points to the bro, but Sam knows he couldn't have done it. Dean doesn't think it sounds like their type of case, but Sam insists. Perhaps if he had told Dean the girl was hot, Dean would agree quicker. The camera pans out to show the Impala peeling out of the gas station--perhaps Sam finally pulled out the hot chick card.

Sam and Dean arrive at Blondie's door in St. Louis, MO, and Dean quickly begins the process of hitting on the poor distraught Becky, with little effect. (Becky doesn't have very good taste.) She ushers them in after Sam assures her the boys are here to help.

Becky offers the intrepid investigators a beer, which Dean wants but Sam turns it down, and then tells the boys her brother’s sob story. He returned home from a night spent chugging brews with his sister to find his girlfriend beaten to death and tied to a chair. He called the authorities, and they arrested him. "But the thing is--and she pauses for effect--"the only way Zack could have killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time." The security tape shows Zack coming home at 10:30, but Becky knows they were cavorting until after midnight.

Of course, the first thing Sam asks is to visit the crime scene. When Becky hesitates, Sam assures her that it’s okay, “My brother Dean is a cop.” Dean thinks he sees a chance to get into Becky’s pants, er, good graces, so he plays along. Becky still isn’t sure, so Sam unleashes the puppy dog eyes of doom on her.

The Impala cruises onto a suburban street. An older couple walks nonchalantly past the crime scene tape blocking off Emily's apartment. Really? People just walk past crime scene tape without looking nervously at it, crossing the street at a clipped run, or trying to catch a glimpse inside? And nobody notices or says anything when the intrepid investigators blithely walk over the tape and enter the apartment?

Becky tears up as she tells a bit more of the sob story, including the fact that someone broke in to steal clothes and the police just plain don't care, the unfeeling bastards.

A barking dog draws both Dean and Blondie's attention. Blondie tells Dean that the dog used to be so sweet, but he changed around the time of the murder. This must be important information, because Dean practically runs away from the vulnerable hot girl to share that tidbit with Sammy.

Dean and Sam agree that the dog is their best witness. He obviously has heightened paranormal-dar. But they need to see the security tape to make sure that this really is their kind of problem.

I don't know. Dean's motivations seem a little suspect here. Does he really care about Zack's plight, or is he regretting his decision to seek Sam rather than take advantage of Becky?

When they ask for the tape, Becky admits that she stole it off the lawyer's desk. Way to help your brother. Steal evidence. Good job, Beckster.

They watch the tape, and Sam decides its time to take Becky up on her offer for beers--four hours ago. With Becky safely out of the room, the intrepid investigators rewind the tape and catch the silver eye flash. Of course, brilliant Sam was the one who saw it, and disbelieving Dean had to have it proven to him. They then agree that, indeed, it appears that something supernatural is at work here. Which is a good thing, because if we had spent this much time on a non-supernatural case that we were going to give up on, cuz, I mean supernatural is the name of the show, this would be the suckiest episode ever.

Meanwhile, we see Zack on the street, watching a couple leave their apartment building. Wait. Isn't Zack in jail? He really can be in two places at the same time!

And he is doing some evil sketching or writing. He leers at girls in slow motion while his eyes turn silver. Creepy! Zack goes after a young lady who has just finished sending her husband off to work.

Time passes, and the husband comes home unexpectedly. Awkward! Husband searches the quiet apartment, trying to figure out why Lindsey no longer wishes to speak to him. And sees a bloody handprint on the wall. Lindsey is tied up, bloody, to a chair in the other room. Boyfriend quickly tries to help, but she tells him in her best I'm pretty, that's who I got this role voice, "Please don't hurt me anymore. Leave me alone." Husband is very confused. He thought he might be walking in on some lurid sex play. Instead, he walked in on some really sick role-playing, role-playing he should have been told about beforehand.

Boyfriend hears an odd sound and instead of comforting his obviously crazy wife, he decides to walk around the apartment looking puzzled, trying to find the source of the sound. He turns around to see himself, coming at him with a baseball bat. He sees the crazy eye flash. And flies back from the impact of the baseball bat. I must say, doppelganger boy will have a much harder time pinning this crime on the boyfriend if he beats the boyfriend with sporting goods.

And the metallic parks in an alley by the dumpster at 5:30 in the morning. Sam posits that the videotape only shows silver-eyed Zack arriving, never leaving. Thus, he must find the trail the cops would never have thought to look for while Dean drinks coffee and snarks about how early it is. I’m beginning to see why I wasn't so much a Dean girl until Season 2. Season 1 Dean is kind of a dick. And a dumb one at that, if his deductive skills in this episode so far are any indication.

Really? No one noticed the big, still wet bloodstain on the telephone pole? Their search for clues is interrupted by an ambulance. Obvs they must chase it. They come around the corner to the front of the building, where neighbors are having more appropriate reactions to the crime scene tape than the older couple in the beginning. Their inane chatter is annoying but believable.

Sam and Dean stop to talk to the only one near their age, the obligatory jogger who just can't believe that the guy she sees every morning is being arrested for beating and trying to kill his wife (I didn't notice any rings). "He seemed like such a nice guy." That's what they say about all the neighborhood serial killers.

Sam apparently thinks their doppelganger will be hiding in the newspaper recycling bin.

All of a sudden, Dean is all over the supernatural nature of this case and pulls out the shape shifter lore--every culture has it--as an explanation. Not doppelgangers, just a shape shifter with a bad sense of humor.

After his search of the recycling bins proved fruitless, poor little Sammy just doesn't know what to do. He thinks the shape shifter must be able to fly, because there's no other explanation for why he's so hard to track. Dean, of course, is the one to suggest that he must be in the sewer. There's some sort of joke here about Dean's mind being in the gutter--I'm sure of it.

The boys crawl down the conveniently located manhole and being prowling the sewer. Sam is sure the sewer must also run under Zack's house. Good bet, in this day and age, that the city sewer system covers the entire neighborhood. Ew. They find gooey, flesh-toned refuse in the sewer. Either their shape shifter sheds his skin like a lizard or someone is a very messy eater. Oo, Dean and I are on the same wavelength--shedding is the answer. And the boys play exposition fairy to let us know that the common thread in all shape shifter lore is that hey can be killed only by a silver bullet through the heart. I hope they don't have to go to all the trouble of making their own silver bullets like the kid in It, because I do not want to watch that.

Becky gives little Sammy a call. Apparently, she has no compunction telling her lawyers how much she is violating the law, because she told them about their illicit trip to the crime scene. The lawyers didn't like that, and they told her that Sammy's bro ain't no cop. And she bitches them out because she violated the law and possibly ruined her brother's case.

Dean uses this as an excuse to prove to Sam that they can trust no one (X-Files flashback, anyone?) and must lie to everyone so they can play with guns with impunity, or something like that.

The boys take their guns and flashlights and head down into the sewer to take care of some shit. Are sewers really this big? I've never had any desire to go down into one to find out, but they seem as if they wouldn't be so spacious. Dean finds more goo and takes it as proof that they are near the shape shifter's lair. They turn around, and there Silver Eyes is. Somehow Dean gets smacked and tells Sam to "get the son of a bitch." Silver Eyes go to ground, popping up from the sewers in a park and running away before the boys come up. Dean acts as if he's been shot in the shoulder when it really looked like he hit his head on the pipe. Perhaps the impact from his head dislocated his shoulder?

Oh boys, never split up when there's a shape shifter on the loose. He could turn himself into one of you. The question is, which one? He picked Dean, as we see Dean's eyes flash silver in the headlights of a car. The boys walk to the car, and Shape-Shifter Dean opens the trunk of the Impala and gives the arsenal inside a look like, well, like Dean gives a cheeseburger or a hot piece of ass. Sammy, not fooled by Silver Eyes’ clever ruse, pulls a gun on Dean. Rather than shooting immediately, Sam allows Silver Eyes to ramble on because really, a silver bullet in the heart will kill a human, too, long enough to clock him with the lug wrench.

Sammy wakes up tied to a pipe in the sewer. Silver Eyes smacks him in the face, seemingly just for fun. The shape shifter gives Sam some crap about how jealous Dean is of him and how much he hates Sam, because when he shifts, he also gets the memories and thoughts of the person whose identity he has stolen. Silver Eyes informs Sammy that he plans to go bang Becky.

Silver Eyes shows up on Becky's doorstep to make amends as Sammy wakes up to hear that Dean is tied up. Sam explains that Silver Eyes has taken Dean's shape. Dean comments him on his impeccable taste--"he picked the handsome one." (Even Dean is a Dean girl.)

The boys escape through the sheer force of will (and because the rope is easily frayed by the sharp edges of the sewer pipes) and rush off to save Becky.

Cut to Silver Eyes and Becky sitting in front of the fire drinking beer while Silver Eyes explains that a shape shifter caused all this hassle for her brother. Oo, Becky calls Silver Eyes a genetic freak. No, Silver Eyes, explains, he's just a step in our evolution, an X-man, if you will.

Back to the sewers, where Sam tells Dean that Silver Eyes was taking Dean's thoughts, not just his looks.

Silver Eyes waxes poetic about how the shape shifter is just misunderstood. Becky doesn't appear to be buying it. Even when Silver Eyes quotes a Rick Springfield song (“Human Touch”), nothing. Oh, Becky, if you just loved him, he wouldn't have to do horrible things to you. Silver Eyes whispers something despicable in Becky's ear, and she wigs out. Don't wig out on the shape shifter girly, it makes him angry, and you wouldn't like him when he's angry. He attacks her and ties her up with the phone cord. This wouldn't have happened if you had a cordless phone like the rest of the world.

Silver Eyes brought in a bunch of crap from the car, including ropes, chains, and a kick-ass knife. And now we are back at the beginning, but the song is much less classic. I think it’s by Tool.

Silver Eyes attacks and jumps out the window. The SWAT dudes are bad shots, as they continually miss Silver Eyes. And Silver Eyes goes back underground, rips off his jacket and shirt, and begins a loud and unpleasant looking shift that involves novelty teeth and a ripped-off ear. They had me until Silver Eyes started pulling off his skin. The fake skin looks too much like plastic.

Cut to Sam and Dean watching the news report that announces the APB on Dean. They show an awful sketch of Dean, to which he exclaims, "Man. That's not even a good picture."

The boys argue about what to do next. Dean wants to kick Silver Eyes' ass, but Sam just wants to hide out and check on Becky in the morning. Yeah, Sam, Becky wants to see you and chat about how your brother tried to kill her. They decide to go find the car. Even more than taking his face, Dean is upset that Silver Eyes took his car.

But the cops aren't stupid. They knew that Dean would be back for the car. As soon as the guys round the corner where it is parked, the sirens come on and the cops trap them in the alley. Sam tells Dean to take off, but not go into the sewers alone. Dean waits until morning then pulls a gun out of the car and heads back into the sewers, alone.

The shape shifter's lair is too full of goo for my tastes. Dean finds Becky tied up in the lair. But then they cut to Sam talking to Becky. Which Becky is real? Ah, the one that didn't just hit Sam over the head with a beer bottle and flash her Silver Eyes at us.

Dean unties real Becky while she tells him that Silver Eyes jumped her while she was walking home. Really? After you've been brutally attacked, you walk home by yourself? She watched the shape shifter turn into her and take off.

Flash back to Sam, and Silver Eyes has shifted back into Dean and left a yucky bit of blond hair goo on Becky's floor. Apparently attempted murder of Becky wasn't enough. Silver Eyes wants Dean to go down for murder of his own brother.

Silver Eyes plants a butcher knife in the pool table, which of course Sam uses to cut the ropes tying his hands. Stage combat ensues, and as usual, Sam sucks at it. As Silver Eyes chokes the life out of Sam, real Dean comes in with a gun and shoots Silver Eyes in the heart.

Becky and Sam have a convo about how weird it is that Sam now hunts supernatural creatures instead of just being a normal college student. Zack is in the clear, but our friend Dean is now a dead murderer. The boys have a little tete-a-tete in the car, which ends with Dean lamenting that he will miss his only chance to see his own funeral.

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Jennifer Roland is a writer and huge fan of all things Winchester. You may also know her as the Pop Culture Curmudgeon, .