Sam is getting his ass kicked by clowns. That's the first scene of Supernatural's episode "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie" which aired Friday, Feb. 10 on the CW. The action then is cut sharply and sends us back to three days before Sam is getting the stuffing kicked out of him by killer clowns. The Winchester brothers are investigating a bizarre death where a man was either squeezed to death by a giant octopus or was killed by multiple sucker-shaped hickies.
Sam and Dean Winchester visit the house of the murdered man and discover he ditched his daughter's birthday party, which happened to be held at the kiddie play land Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie. Another father soon is murdered - speared in the back by a unicorn. Both the children of the murdered dads were at Plucky's the day before, so the Winchesters go there to investigate. In some creepy bit of child psychology, the kiddie land has a "fear wall" where children draw their worst fears and the drawings are put on display.
Half the fun is watching Sam squirm at the mention of clowns or the sight of clowns. Sam's obvious discomfort on the phone when Dean suggests Sam investigate Plucky's is priceless. Sam has good reason to fear; Plucky's is filled by creepy clown paintings, decorations and a cackling clown toy that would be a perfect in a Halloween house of horror.
On a purely superficial level, Sam (Jared Padalecki) looked gorgeous this week in his FBI suit. Sam's extreme closeups when he was playing bad cop and trying to scare the employees of Plucky's into admitting some vital piece of information about the murders were great. Padalecki always is a delight to watch when playing a bad guy with such intensity.
In a relatively dark season of Supernatural, "Plucky's" is an episode filled with malicious delight. The employee dying in a pool of rainbow colored plastic balls while an unseen monster attacked him from below was clever and a cute way of cutting special effects budget costs. Perhaps it really was too much to hope that Dean Winchester would be fighting an enormous robot shooting lasers from its eyes (although that would have been awesome).
What really was a treat was watching Sam fight not one, but two scary clowns. Poor Sammy has taken on monsters, demons and the Devil, yet two clowns kicked his ass. Perhaps the lowest blow yet was one clown spraying Sam in the eye with water from the clown's flower lapel.
The one scene that felt slow was Dean confronting Howard (Michael Blackman Beck), an employee at Plucky's who brought a child's fears to life through powerful witchcraft. The episode could have gotten by with making the monster into a shape-shifting ghoul that could change and manifest itself based on a child's wishes. Once Dean destroys the Plucky clown toy by throwing it into the fire, the sight of the two clowns exploding into colorful glitter as they run at Sam is priceless. Poor Sam looked like he was ready for a gig at Las Vegas afterward.
At the end, Dean gives Sam a surprise "gift" of a Plucky doll, which ends up discarded by the clown-traumatized-Sam on the asphalt. Before the scene darkens, the Plucky doll winks at the viewers. Does this mean we'll see more evil killer clowns in the future? One can only hope.
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