Heartache Recap

This episode opens in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a man is jogging along a footpath near the river at night. He is followed by someone who comes up alongside him, keeping pace and looking at him. This other guy is quite a lot older and in spite of looking unfit he speeds off, leaving the jogger behind. However as the jogger rounds a bend he sees this older man standing on the path in front of him. He walks up to the older man, congratulating him on being fast but this man grabs his arm and says, ‘I do a lot of cardio’ and sticks his arm into the jogger’s chest, pulling his heart clean out...

The scene changes to Dean and Sam, walking through a farmers’ market. Sam’s carrying a plastic bag of shopping and he’s interested in the fruit – he picks up an apple and buys it but Dean is oblivious to where he is, he’s looking on his phone at a report of the jogger whose heart was taken and says there was another incident where someone’s heart was removed six months earlier, also in Minneapolis – he says it’s a case and they should look into it. Sam says they are still searching for Kevin and the missing tablet and they take priority but Dean says they have been chasing Kevin for a week now with no success and they should take on cases while they are looking for him. Sam isn’t convinced. Dean doesn’t much care for Sam’s new laid-back attitude and says ‘We’ll find Kevin but in the meantime are innocent people supposed to die while you shop for produce?’ Sam gives in…

Dean and Sam are talking to a detective about the jogger. He tells them the heart was pulled out cleanly with no incisions. All his valuables were still on him when he was found so it wasn’t a robbery and when Dean asks if he had any enemies the detective said he wasn’t local, he was just attending a conference. Dean asks about the case six months earlier but the detective says they ‘hit a brick wall’ there, but they do have something on the jogger. Park surveillance video footage shows the older man, who’s called Paul Hayes, running past the jogger. The detective says he was the last person to see the jogger before he died, except the killer. Dean is skeptical that the police think Hayes is clean just because he hasn’t got a record or confessed, which upsets the detective. He glares at Dean and says, ‘forgive me if I didn’t take him out back and shoot him!’ (– funny!)

Dean and Sam go to visit Paul Hayes. Sam’s talking to Hayes, who tells him he doesn’t know anything about the jogger – he just ran past him. Dean enters the room after ‘using the restroom’ and Sam comments on the fact that he was a lot faster than the jogger who was much younger than him, and Dean also gestures to indicate that he is also a lot bigger – ‘full figured’ says Hayes, who tells them he’s a lot better (slimmer) now – he takes care of himself after a health scare he had a year ago. Dean’s face watching him drink a green health food drink is priceless!

The scene changes to a bar, where Dean is using a computer. Sam walks in and asks him what he found at Paul’s and he says nothing unusual, but then Dean finds details online of another murder with a heart ripped out, but this happened in Ames, Iowa. Sam says Hayes couldn’t have done this one. The newspaper online shows a police officer has been arrested for the murder, and Dean says this also happened six months ago – first a murder in Minneapolis, then in Ames…

In Ames, Dean and Sam are talking to a policeman about Arthur Swenson, the arrested officer. He tells them that Swenson was a good officer, twenty years’ service. He says that the victim was delivering a pizza to Swenson but he never made it to the next delivery address; they found his body, minus the heart, outside Swenson’s place. Swenson was on the stoop outside, covered in blood and crying. The officer says that Swenson had been in court all week, testifying. Sam tells Dean it couldn’t have been him in Minneapolis and Dean says, ‘I hate when this happens.’

The Boys go to see Arthur in jail. His hands are twisting around constantly, his head’s moving and he keeps repeating phrases of gibberish, speaking fast. His eyes are strange, staring, and they are different colors, which Dean remarks on. Sam is interviewing him while Dean looks on but he can’t get him to make any sense or respond to his questions, except he does strike the desk hard when Sam asks him if an invisible voice told him to kill. Dean sprinkles him with holy water to check if he’s possessed, and he isn’t. The Boys leave…

Later that night in his cell, Arthur is still repeating the same chorus of meaningless phrases and is rocking back and forwards on his bed. He somehow pulls a short piece of metal off the bedframe and raises it up towards his eyes, saying the same phrases, slowly this time. The metal bar has a slanted, blunt edge… The scene switches to the outside of the cell and we hear something pierce flesh and then Arthur starts screaming…

Back in the motel, Sam replays the phrases he recorded Arthur saying. Dean says it sounds like babble but he remembers he bought a translation app, while Sam gives him that almost pitying look he reserves for when Dean tries to be in any way technical… Sam plays the recording onto Dean’s phone and the phone says ‘language unknown’. Sam gets a phone call and they head off to the hospital…

Arthur is in a hospital bed, asleep or unconscious. His left eye is bandaged. Dean and the doctor are in a room adjoining Arthur’s room, looking in through a window. She tells Dean that he severed the optic nerve – he was determined to remove his eye – and he used a piece of metal from his bed as a knife. Dean asks about his eyes being different colours and she tells him that Arthur was in an accident a year ago; one eye was shattered but his vision was saved by a transplant. She said he cut out the transplanted eye. Dean asks if it’s possible to trace the donor of the eye…

In the motel, Sam is working on his laptop and Dean walks in. Sam starts talking about Arthur’s transplant and says he remembered Paul Hayes talking about a health scare he had a year ago, so he pulled up his medical records. Dean gives Sam a long stare, which Sam interprets as Dean being surprised he’s being so helpful as he says, ‘you want me onboard, I’m onboard.’ Sam goes on to say that Paul Hayes also had a transplant a year ago. Dean summarizes that they have two suspects to two identical murders in two different cities, and both suspects had organ transplants a year ago. Sam goes on to say that maybe Dean’s translation app didn’t recognize the words because they could be from a dead language, so he sent an audio file to Dr. Morrison (an anthropology professor they met in ‘The Slice Girls’, Season 7). Dean says they need to get on the road to Boulder, Colorado because if the cycle of murders from six months ago is repeating, the next ‘heart attack’ will be there…

…Outside the rear exit of a place called ‘The Bunny Hole’ in Boulder, a man waits. A woman comes out from the club and walks to meet him. He’s obviously arranged to meet her here as he greets her as ‘Randa’ and she calls him ‘Chick’. He says he enjoyed her performance. She takes him down the alley and pushes him hard up against a wall, and then she pulls his heart out and he drops to the floor…

The scene switches to Dean and Sam in the car. Dean’s driving and he’s excited that the case is starting to come together. Sam is quiet and pensive. Dean says this last year has given him a whole new perspective after his last year. Sam agrees with him but his expression shows he’s thinking about his normal life when he says. ‘I hear you, believe me.’
Dean goes on to say, ‘I know where I’m at my best and that is, right here, driving down Crazy Street next to you.’
Sam replies, ‘Makes sense… Or, maybe you don’t need me. Maybe you’re at your best hacking and slicing your way through all the world’s crap alone, not having to explain yourself to anybody.’
Dean’s upset and takes refuge in sarcasm, saying, ‘Yeah, that makes sense seeing as how I have so many other brothers I can talk to about this stuff.’
Sam replies, ‘Look, I’m not saying I’m baling on you, I’m just saying make room for the possibility that we want different things. I mean I want my time to count for something’, to which Dean replies, ‘so what we do doesn’t count?’
Their conversation is interrupted when Dean’s phone rings. It’s Dr. Koshi from the hospital, who tells him that Swenson’s eye and Hayes’ kidney both came from the same donor – Brick Holmes, the famous quarterback. Sam says he died in a car crash last year, nose-diving off a bridge. He asks Dean how many other organs he donated and Dean says eight including the two already mentioned. Sam asks if one of the organs is in Boulder and Dean says no, but Brick Holmes lived just outside Boulder and he’s the only lead they have now, so they head for Boulder anyway…

The scene changes to Randa, who is in a dark room lit with candles. She’s slowly repeating the same chant that Swenson spoke while she paints her face with blood, as if she’s performing a ritual. Then she picks up a bloody heart and starts eating it…

Randa starts to sway backwards and forwards and lifts her arms; a colored smoke comes down from behind her and enters her body. There’s a red flash over her heart and she lowers her head, and when she lifts it, her eyes flash red also…

The Boys are at Brick’s house, talking to his Mom...

...Sam asks her if she knew her son was an organ donor. She’s surprised by the question but Dean reassures her and she explains that he signed up along with other athletes after a public awareness campaign. She says Brick didn’t think twice about it because he never thought he was going to die. Dean asks her about the car accident as it was puzzling – there was only light traffic, no alcohol was involved and there were no skid marks, so how could someone with such good reflexes drive off a bridge? She says it was just an accident and doesn’t say any more… Sam asks about Brick’s private life – was he ever married – and she says no. Dean asks if she’d noticed any changes in Brick before he died anyone or anything new in his life and she says, ‘no’. Dean then continues, ‘so no new interests, fly-fishing, stamp collecting, the Occult?’ – with a straight face - and she replies no again. She gets up and says she has to go as the university is naming a new athletic building after Brick, and Dean and Sam leave…

Outside the house Dean sees on his phone that someone else has had their heart ripped out in Boulder… Inside, Brick’s Mom watches them leave then heads towards the stairs. She sees Randa at the top and recognizes her. She asks what Randa is doing there and she says she ’likes to stay close to the mother-ship’. She asks if the men are cops, and Brick’s Mom agrees. Randa warns her to be careful what she says. Brick’s Mom says she’s old, not an idiot and Randa says she’s just looking out for Brick – his heart beats inside her now; he’s given her new life and she can feel him inside her, which is why she moved to Boulder, to be close… Randa says she will watch out for Brick’s Mom, that they need each other, and she warns her to keep their secret and ‘the three of us will be just fine’…

Back at the motel, Sam is just ending a phone call with Dr. Morrison. Dean’s at the desk, using Sam’s laptop. Sam goes over to Dean and tells him that the words Arthur Swenson was babbling over and over are ancient Mayan and they translate to ‘the divine god Cacao is born’. He says that Cacao (Kakau) was their most powerful god, the God of Maize… Dean says, ‘so this is what we’re looking for, a… thousand year old culture’s god of corn?’ (–funny!). Dean says that someone in Phoenix is going to be the next one to get ‘their heart yanked’. Jimmy Tang from Phoenix also got one of Brick’s organs and he’s missing. Dean emailed the police there but they haven’t seen him for days. Dean tells Sam there’s also an email for him from a university, answering questions about admissions. Sam looks a little embarrassed and says he’s just looking at options. Dean stares at Sam and says, ‘you’re seriously talking about hanging it up?’

Sam repeats he is only looking at options but then changes the subject under Dean’s stare, saying do they go to Phoenix and just wait for this guy to show up? Dean says no, that Brick Holmes is the way in to this and that Eleanor Holmes was trying hard not to tell them anything. As he walks out of the room he says to Sam, ‘nice job of changing the subject though’…

Dean and Sam go back to Brick’s house to investigate while Eleanor is at the naming ceremony. They go into the master bedroom and they each go into a different closet to look around. Dean is in Brick’s closet and says nothing’s been touched for a year. He finds hair dye in a drawer and shouts to Sam would he be crushed to know Brick wasn’t a natural blonde! Sam shouts to Dean that it’s weird – he’s found Eleanor’s clothes in the closet that he’s in. Dean wonders why her closet would be in Brick’s room and Sam picks up some clothes and asks Dean to check it out. They both come out and Sam shows Dean the clothes, saying, ‘this is what she was wearing today when we talked to her.’
Dean replies, ‘maybe she moved into Brick’s room after he died… or…’ and he looks pointedly at the bed and back to Sam, who looks and says, ‘oh… thanks, Dean, that image is permanently etched into my retinas.’ Dean just shrugs and they both go back into their separate closets…

Dean finds a door hidden behind some curtains at the back and he opens it. He goes in, followed by Sam. The hidden room contains trophies and equipment from football and many other sports – baseball, boxing, racing driving, cricket, golf, among others – some of it is very old. Dean finds a box filled with papers. They are letters, all addressed to ‘Dearest Betsy’. Sam asks who she is and Dean speculates it’s a girlfriend. Sam finds an old letter, which refers to ‘Sugar Ray’, and Dean says, ‘Sugar Ray, as in Robinson? Didn’t he box in like the forties? Is it signed the same?’ and Sam shows Dean the letter and replies, ‘yes’ to the signature question and ‘love me’ for the signature. They both carry on reading out the letters, all to ‘dearest Betsy’, all signed ‘love me’ and all talking about different sports. Finally Sam reads a recent letter which starts ’Dearest Betsy, I’m so tired of it all’…

In the motel room, Sam says he’s pulled up the names on the trophies in Brick’s room. Dean comes over to look. Sam puts the four photographs of Brick Holmes and three other sporting stars together and says they have ‘the same dark eyes, same cheekbones, nose, mouth’. Dean asks if these guys who all look to be in their mid-twenties and go back seventy years could be the same guy. Sam waves his hand in possible agreement…

Later, Sam asks how if the athletes were all the same person, how did the guy pull it off – did he ’appear, then go away and come back with a new look?’
Dean replies saying, ‘the Mayans were all about war and torture and conquest and sports. Their athletes were treated like kings. The Mayan jocks made sacrifices to Cacao by, ready for this, killing a victim, pulling out his heart and eating it. They believed the rituals gave them supercharged power over their opponents.’
Sam says the athletes didn’t stay young forever so did he (Brick) make a deal with Cacao? Dean says they’ve seen it before, people making deals with demons and gods, and maybe Brick stayed young and strong as long as the sacrifices kept coming. He goes on to say that with all that antique sports equipment Brick had, maybe he went back to the Mayan days. Sam says, ’wow, so one of the greatest QBs ever to play the game was over nine hundred years old?’
Dean says that explains Brick but not the other people ‘carrying his spare parts’.
Sam replies, ‘maybe the spell went along for the ride and infected the people who got his organs?’ He talks about Paul Hayes who had a health scare that changed his life and says maybe the spell could compel someone to complete the ritual. Dean likens it to being bitten by a werewolf: ‘I mean, once you’re infected you do what you gotta do, especially if you like the results.’
Sam agrees and says Arthur couldn’t handle it and he went nuts. He’s still looking at the computer, looks quizzical and says, ‘at least he wasn’t sleeping with his mother’. Dean replies, ‘yeah good, Sam, find the silver lining’, but Sam calls him over and shows him a picture of a boxer – one of the four who was Brick – and he’s with his wife, Betsy, who’s also Eleanor…

They go to see Eleanor at Brick’s house and Dean asks her if she’d rather they called her Betsy. .. Inside, Sam tells her innocent people are dying and Dean asks if she knew about the murders over the last year, and she says she didn’t. She thought it would all be over when Brick died. Dean asks her to help them; that this isn’t what she wants Brick’s legacy to be. She tells them that Brick was a proud young Mayan athlete called Inyo nearly a thousand years ago: ‘he lived for sport and never wanted his days in the sun to end.’ She says he arranged a bargain with Cacao through the high priest – Dean interrupts her, saying, ‘stay young forever’ – and she continues, saying this would continue as long as the sacrifices were made, twice a year, once at the planting, once at the harvest. Sam asks when she found out about it and she says only when she was growing old and Brick, or the boxer, Kelly as he was then, wasn’t. She says he had changed by then, he wasn’t just the warrior living for combat anymore; they were both deeply in love so when she found out how he remained young, she ignored it. Sam said they must have had to go underground from time to time to hide their secret. She tells them that every ten years or so he’d reappear with a new look, a new name, and she was first the wife, then the woman in hiding and finally became Brick’s mother, Eleanor. She says she was tired of it all, it was such a burden, and Brick was tired too. He could see she wasn’t going to live much longer and although he’d lived for centuries alone she thought he couldn’t go on without her. She explains that’s why he drove off the bridge… She says that they must think she’s a monster, but Dean just replies, ‘no, no, just that you married one.’
Dean says that they have eight killers to deal with now, not just one, but Eleanor disagrees. She says that Brick used to say the heart is key; it was the focus of the sacrifice, and Dean asks her if she’s saying that if they ‘stop Brick’s beating heart’ they can stop the whole thing, and she nods yes…
Sam asks her if she knows where the person is who has Brick’s heart…

The scene changes to The Boys pulling up in the Impala outside The Bunny Hole. Dean says, ‘really, our king daddy monster is a stripper?’
Sam is concerned their plan to kill the monster might not work. Dean says it should, as long as Eleanor knows what she’s talking about, and he hands Sam a knife. Sam asks Dean if Brick thought he’d burn to nothing when he crashed the car, to which Dean answers ‘yes, but he didn’t, which brings us here’, dismissing Sam’s doubts – possibly concerns over killing Randa? Dean picks the lock on the back door and they go in and up the stairs, eventually arriving in the main bar area. The lights come on when they are close to the stage; a shadow appears against the curtains at the back of the stage and Randa walks out on the stage, facing them…

Randa walks forward and says Eleanor told them about her, she figured she would give her up and it won’t end well for her. She also says it won’t end well for them. Sam pulls his knife out and she says, ‘Oh now you don’t think we’re going to let you do that, do you?’
Dean says, ‘we...?’ and then they are both attacked by Paul Hayes and Jimmy Tang! Sam is hit on the head and thrown into a corner and then Hayes and Tang both attack Dean. Tang throws Dean onto the stage in front of Randa and they both pin him down. Dean says, ‘ah, you guys are stronger than you look’ and Hayes replies, ‘comes with the package, plus I work out a lot.’
Randa says, ‘you can’t imagine who I was before: this shy, awkward little thing from Georgia with a heart condition…’ and she places her shoe on Dean’s chest. ‘Then I had the surgery and became freakin’ Xena, warrior princess.’ She takes her foot off and straddles him, putting her hands on his chest and says sacrificing to Cacao is better than sex…
‘If I go real slow, take my time and enjoy this… I can actually show you your own beating heart… before you die.’ She grips his chest over his heart with her right hand and presses down… blood appears under her fingertips and Dean groans in agony…

Sam hits Hayes on the head with a bottle and he releases Dean, then he grabs Sam around the throat. As Randa looks over, distracted, Dean slides his knife out of his pocket with his free left hand and stabs her in the heart. Her eyes glow red and fire erupts along the knife. Hayes and Tang appear confused and unsure, and Hayes lets go of Sam. Randa stands up and she is starting to burn fiercely now…

Red smoke erupts from the bodies of Hayes and Tang and they fall unconscious to the floor. Dean shields his eyes as Randa’s body flashes with red light, she shouts out and then the fire from her red eyes winks out and she falls to the floor, dead… Dean struggles to turn over and look at Sam but he can’t get up for the moment and lays there…

…The Boys are with Eleanor, and Dean tells her it is finally over. She’s philosophical about it. She says she half-thought they would fail and Randa would come after her, but either way, she’s at peace at last. Dean tells her to take care of herself and they leave…

In the car driving along, Dean’s happy, buzzing: ‘Wow, back in business’ he says. ‘Got the wind… admit it, feels good, huh? You know I was thinking about what Randa said about what it feels like to be a warrior… I get it, Man, I do.’
Sam is quiet. He says, ‘I know, I know you do… I don’t, not any more… Hell, maybe I never did.’
Dean replies, ‘c’mon, Sam, don’t ruin my buzz, would you?’
But Sam continues: ‘Dean, listen, when this is over, when we close up shop on Kevin and the tablet, I’m done, I mean that.’
Dean says, ‘no, you don’t.’
Sam replies, ‘Dean the year I took off I had something I’ve never had… a normal life… I got to see what that felt like… I want that… I had that.’
‘I think that’s just how you feel right now,’ says Dean.

Sam looks out the window. He thinks back to a time when he was in a park with Amelia. It’s a bright, sunny day. She’s disappeared and he calls her but there’s no answer. Then his dog runs off too. Sam runs after him and as he rounds a hedge he sees Amelia sitting there on the ground. A birthday cake is in front of her. She lifts her arms and shouts, ‘Happy Birthday!’ to him.
Sam says. ’what is this?’
She replies, ‘never seen a birthday cake before?’
He smiles and walks over to her…

Back in the car Sam smiles at the memory, but then he looks over at Dean and his smile disappears…

Editor’s note:

I think this is a good episode: it has the feel of traditional Supernatural ‘monster’ episodes although there's more dialog than usual. It is also an important episode as it shows how different the brothers’ outlooks are now after their year apart through extended dialogue scenes between Dean and Sam. Dean is fixed on hunting and sees everything as black and white while Sam is conflicted and yearns for normality. Some of the dialog is verbatim where I felt it was important or where it was much easier to use it than to write about it.