'Supernatural' Recap — Episode 8.06, "Southern Comfort."

For a lot of people, “Southern Comfort” was just one more episode to sit through before next week’s, which features the return of (spoilers) everyone’s second-favorite seraph. I feel sorry for those people, because this episode was awesome, and if you weren’t a Garth fan before, I’d find it hard to believe that you weren’t one after watching this episode.

Of course we have the obligatory opener, where a lady comes home and runs her husband over with a car, mentioning some ‘Sarah Alcott’. Then Dean picks up word of it and tells Sam, who is of course upset because he’s acting like the whole “Benny” thing didn’t happen. Dean insists that he’s not a bad guy (which has Sam bringing up the whole kitsune Amy thing, hallelujah praise references to past episodes), and accepts the fact that if Benny slips up some other hunter will probably kill him.

Sam isn’t exactly pleased with this answer but there’s not really much he can do, and they go off to check out the case. And they run into Garth on the scene of the crime. Garth who has unexpectedly become a center of communication and knowledge for a network of hunters, effectively making him (in Sam’s words) the “new Bobby”. Though Dean is more than reluctant to accept that.

In any case, they talk to the victims’ son (adult son), who can’t think of any reason why his mother would do something like that. Big surprise. The three hunters find some

weirdly green ectoplasm on the crime scene, however, and Garth hears word that the victim had “Alcott” carved into his chest, so they go talk to the accused murderer who says she doesn’t remember anything, except feeling very, very angry. And when asked about the name ‘Alcott’, she tells them that it’s the name of a woman who went to prom with the lady’s husband back in high school.

They of course decide to go talk to her, but stop at a bar first to get some grub and talk about stuff. Like where Dean was, and Garth’s past. We don’t get much more information about Dean, but apparently Garth went to college, became a dentist, and his first case was killing the tooth fairy.

After that little talk we go back to the victim’s son, who stops at a convenience store and ends up murdering some guy with a shovel. He also has black goo dripping out his ear, though, and when he glances in the mirror he sees himself as a dead, rotten, Civil War era soldier.

Of course the hunters show up, and spot “Sussex” painted in blood, and Garth steps in more ghost ooze. And Dean gets upset over Garth wearing one of Bobby’s hats. Luckily that little row gets interrupted, and Garth says that he found Sarah Alcott. Sam quickly calls dibs and leaves Garth and Dean to find out what “Sussex” means, and no doubt meaning for Dean to get over Garth’s whole “Bobby” thing.

Turns out Sarah Alcott was just what we thought Sarah Alcott was. Some lady that the victim had dated for one night, the end. Her story does, however, trigger one of Sam’s flashbacks—apparently he ended up sleeping with Amelia (oh no), and she finally opens up to him, explaining that she had a husband, Don, who had died in Afghanistan eight months previous.

Then back to Garth and Dean. Garth tries to reach out to Dean, which is never a good idea, and gets snapped at, with the Winchester insisting that Garth is never going to be Bobby, so he should just stop. Surprisingly, Garth retaliates, saying that Bobby belonged to all of the hunters, and he’s just trying to do something with what Bobby taught them.

Thankfully, Dean backs down, and they get to work—finding out that Sussex is a business that was owned by the most recent victim and killer, which tanked—and then Garth finds in Bobby’s journal that green goo means a Specter, which is like a ghost except that it possesses people and forces them to act on their grudges (so basically, the episode that aired after election day was about a bunch of southerners holding grudges). The last one came up after someone’s grave was desecrated, and Garth finds out that a similar thing happened in the town a few days ago—so simple, find the grave and torch the bones, right?

Except, it turns out that the grave was actually the tomb of the Confederate’s Unknown Soldier. Awkward. But, they come back at night and torch it, easy, except they notice that nothing was missing from when it was broken into. Still, the bones were salted and burned, so there, episode over, right?

Well, considering there’re still fifteen minutes left, I’m thinking not.

And true to the assumption, the next scene has a police officer going vengeful and blowing the sheriff away with a shotgun. Obviously the hunters are confused, but decide that there’s got to be an item the specter is attaching itself to—but specter is already on the move, and Dean goes after it, following it to the hospital, leaving Garth and Sam to figure out what the item is.

Somehow, being at the library has Sam going into flashback mode again, and Amelia basically tells him to leave after their night together and acts like it’s nothing. Poor confused Sammy.

Anyways, back to the present, Garth and Sam are trying to find out who the “unknown soldier” is (good luck) and Dean is sniffing around the hospital where the specter went.

Garth and Sam find out that one rumor is that the soldier was “Corporal Collins”, who wore a penny around his neck like any other soldier, and the specter, um, sniffs Dean, and forces the penny into his hand.

So, when they get back to the motel, Dean of course is oozing black goo and pulls a gun on Sam, proceeding to then go through a list of absolutely everything that he ever did wrong. Sam tries to get the gun out of his hand but gets beat down, so Garth steps in between them, assuming (correctly, thank god) that Dean won’t shoot him. His heartfelt talk fails, but when Dean tries to get past him, Garth gets in a well-placed punch, which causes Dean to drop the penny.

Which Garth then picks up, but…doesn’t change. Apparently, he doesn’t hold a single grudge.

Cut to later. Garth melted the penny, and gives Dean a talkin’ to, telling him to lay off Sam, which I think everyone agrees with…and Dean puts Bobby’s hat back on the guy’s head. Aww.

Back to the motel room, we need one more flashback before Sam fills his quota—so we see him go back to Amelia’s motel room and try to explain himself. Luckily, he gets invited back in, and…they talk. Sam finally has someone to talk to.

But, in real life, he has to talk to Dean, and finally just up and tells him to get off his back about everything. Dean says ‘okay’, but…not very convincingly. I have a feeling we’re going to be dealing with this conflict for a long while.

Tune into Castiel–er–the next episode of Supernatural on the CW next Wednesday, November 14th, at 9/8c!