7.03 The Girl Next Door
Title | The Girl Next Door |
Episode # | Season 7, Episode 3 |
First aired | October 7, 2011 |
Directed by | Jensen Ackles |
Written by | Andrew Dabb Daniel Loflin |
On IMDB | The Girl Next Door |
Outline | Sam disappears to follow a lead on a case with clues that are identical to a case he solved as a kid. A creature has been killing low-life thugs and taking their brains for dinner. |
Monster | Kitsune Leviathans |
Timeline | October 6, 2011 October 27-29, 2011 |
Location(s) | Sioux Falls, South Dakota Whitefish, Montana |
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Synopsis
Directly following 7.02 Hello, Cruel World, Dean wakes up in Sioux Falls General Hospital just as his broken leg is being set. He tells the nurse that he and his brother have to leave as soon as possible, but she tells him that he's not going anywhere. Dean struggles, but falls unconscious.
When Dean next wakes up, his right leg is in a cast, and a fully-healthy and very much alive Bobby is entering his hospital room. Dean remembers the nurses saying that Sam was being taken for an MRI, so Bobby goes to find him while Dean gets dressed. Their plan is to meet at the ambulance dock. Dean, though he's high on morphine, stumbles there on crutches, narrowly avoiding the Leviathans that are there posing as staff. The Leviathan impersonating Dr. Gaines receives a call alerting him to the Winchesters' arrival at the hospital, but he is too late to stop Bobby from driving away in a stolen ambulance with Dean and an unconscious Sam.
Three weeks later, Dean and Sam are in Whitefish, Montana, in an old cabin that belonged to Rufus. Bobby brings Dean the keys to the Impala and then tells them both that a lot of hunters have been encountering the Leviathans. They're like shapeshifters, but they bleed black goo and like to eat people, and so far nobody's found anything that can kill them. While they talk, Sam spaces out, but grabs his scarred palm to snap himself out of it. Dean is concerned that Sam's not all there, but Bobby tells him that his brother is healing and that he has to trust him. He leaves to go round up a couple of book stashes that he had hidden outside his house, and Dean sends Sam out for food and snacks.
At the general store, Sam notices a newspaper with the headline Ice Pick Killer Strikes Again. He adds the paper to his purchase and charges it all to a credit card with the name Lemmy Kilmister. Meanwhile, at the credit card company, an leviathan employee - Chet - is alerted to the transaction. He immediately calls Edgar and alerts him that Sam and Dean have made a purchase in a shop in Montana.
Back at the cabin, Sam waits until Dean is asleep to read the newspaper story about the "ice pick killer." He flashes back to 1998, when he was doing research and advising Dean and his father, John, over the phone about a kitsune in Lincoln, Nebraska. Apparently, kitsune look human, but sprout claws so that they can tear into their victims behind their ears and feed on their brains. They need a steady diet of human pituitary glands to survive. Something similar is killing people nearby, all low-life thugs, and Sam decides to investigate it on his own. When Dean wakes up, Sam is gone in the Impala. Dean calls Bobby, who tries to calm him down, but Dean is frantic. He saws off his cast early so that he can go after him.
Near Bozeman, Montana, Sam sits in the Impala in a parking lot by a park. Another car pulls up and parks nearby. As he waits, he remembers meeting a young girl, Amy, at the library where he was researching kitsune back in 1998. She rebuffed his advances until he fought off two other boys who were harassing her. She then invited Sam back to her house, where she examined his swollen eye and then brought him a cold soda. In the fridge, unseen by Sam, were jars holding brains. As they talked, Sam and Amy found that they both had a lot in common, and they kissed. Back in the present time, Sam stalks a young woman as she moves through the woods. She seems to be stalking someone herself, and Sam grabs her before she can attack. It's Amy. She remembers him and tries to defend herself, but Sam is sure that she's the "ice pick killer" and that he just interrupted her hunt. She won't explain herself, and Sam is unwilling to trust her, but before he can do anything she uses her superior strength to knock him unconscious.
As they struggled, Sam was able to grab a few things from her pockets and learn her full alias: Amy Pond. He tracks her to her house and finds her packing a bag, fresh blood on her hand. He tells her that he has to kill her because she's a monster, but she reveals that she's been living a normal life up to now. A mortician in the PTA, she only feeds on the dead, but feeding on the dead is risky for Kitsune, especially for a kid. Her son, Jacob, started dying as a result of eating dead flesh and he needed fresh meat to recover. She promises that she's done killing people because her son recovered, having broken his fever with his last meal.
Dean is following Sam's trail, and learns that Sam is after a kitsune. He catches up to Sam and is waiting for him in his motel room when he gets back from Amy's house. Sam tells Dean that the kitsune is taken care of, but when pressed admits that he didn't kill her. Dean is skeptical that the kitsune won't kill again, so Sam tells Dean about what happened back in 1998. Apparently, Amy's mom was the kitsune that John and Dean were after, and she rushed home with them on her trail. Amy tried to hide Sam from her, but she found him and was going to kill him when Amy stabbed her through the heart, killing her. Because she killed her own mother protecting Sam, he's willing to believe her when she says she won't kill anyone else. He asks for Dean's trust, and Dean says that he believes him and that they can leave the kitsune alone.
Sam and Dean head to Spokane and Bobby plans to meet them there. Once there, Dean claims that he's heading to the pharmacy and drops off Sam at their motel. Instead, he goes to confront Amy, who's been on the run but neglected to change her license plates. Amy tries to convince Dean that she's not going to kill anyone else, but Dean is sure that, as a monster, she'll kill again. He stabs and kills her, and when he turns around he sees her son, Jacob, in the doorway. Dean asks him if he's got anyone to go to — he does — and then if he's ever killed anyone — he hadn't — and finishes by warning him that if he ever does, he'll be back for him. Jacob tells Dean that the only person he plans to kill is him, and Dean welcomes him to try in a few years, assuming he's still alive by that time. Dean leaves the room while Jacob checks on his mom's body.
Back in Whitefish, Chet watches Sam on the security footage of the general store. He calls and tells Edgar that he's on their trail, and then kills and eats the shop clerk (drenched with nacho cheese).
Characters
Definitions
Music
- "She Was Country" by The Neil Nelson Band
- (plays when Sam is buying snacks)
- "Two Days in February" by The Goo Goo Dolls
- (the "cool" song that plays during Sam's flashback of his kiss with Amy)
Quotes
Young Amy: Three times! Not that big.
Young Amy: You're a hunter. So you're supposed to kill me? And I'm supposed to kill you?
Dean: Sam...
Trivia & References
- A reference to the David Bowie song, "Space Oddity" -- specifically the lyric "Ground control to Major Tom" -- the song was previously used in 6.09 Clap Your Hands If You Believe..., and Dean referred to Sam as Major Tom in 2.15 Tall Tales.
- Girl, Interrupted is a memoir by Susanna Kaysen and the movie based on it, both entitled Girl, Interrupted and depicting Kaysen's stay in a mental health facility. Misha Collins has a bit part in the movie; a more important character is played by Clea Duvall, who co-starred with Jensen in Ten Inch Hero. The season five episode 5.11 Sam, Interrupted was a play on this title. Dean previously referenced the movie in 4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- A commercial for this movie plays while Dean is asleep on the couch. Jensen played Tom Hanniger in My Bloody Valentine 3D.
- Dean is referring to James Stewart's leading role in Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film Rear Window as a photographer who breaks his leg and is confined to his home.
Amy: Sam, you are a freak. But so was, I don't know, Jimi Hendrix and Picasso. So am I. All the coolest people are freaks.
- Jimi Hendrix was an American guitarist active in the 1960s.
- Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter.
Minutiae
• Jensen talks about directing the episode at Comic Con 2011.
• Jared talks about being directed by Jensen at Nerd HQ at Comic Con 2011.This is the fifth episode in which the part of a younger Sam has been played by Colin Ford. The only episodes in which young Sam was not played by Colin were 1.18 Something Wicked, when the character was played by Alex Ferris, and 5.22 Swan Song, when the character was played by Nathan Smith.
In this episode, young Sam would be 15.
Sides, Scripts & Transcripts
- 7.03 The Girl Next Door (Transcript)
- The Girl Next Door script (Production Draft)
- The Girl Next Door script (Blue Revisions only)
- The Girl Next Door script (Pink Revisions only)
- 2nd Unit Call Sheet: Day 1 of 1
Promotion
- Casting news by Zap2it
- Jewel Staite confirmed as guest star by TV Overmind
- Photos of Jared and Jensen on set by Bauer Griffin
- Tweet from a Colin Ford
- Fan report of her day on the set by Janine Shahinian
- Pic of guest star on the set posted from his twitter
- Title and character spoilers from SpoilerTV
- official Synopsis
- Interview with Jewel Staite
- Interview with Jewel Staite about the episode by TV Guide
- WinchesterBros exclusive behind the scenes photos
- WinchesterBros exclusive interview with Leslie Hopps DeSchutter (Amy's mom)
- Promo pics from ksitetv
- Promo clip, Webclip #1 and Webclip #2
- Winchester Radio podcast for The Girl Next Door with Leslie Hopps DeSchutter