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It’s Idol Season on Supernatural.

The episode begins with two friends in awe of their latest purchase – a classic car known only as “The Little Bastard.” One climbs in the driver’s seat while the other goes to fetch his video camera. As can be expected, by the time the friend returns, the only thing he catches on camera is his buddy’s corpse bleeding through the windshield.

En route to Canton, Ohio, Sam and Dean discuss the new case. Sam is anxious to find the Colt and “ice the Devil”, but Dean is more cautious and prefers a fresh start “with training wheels.” Sam takes this as an insult, as tensions remain from the Winchesters’ split in the prior episodes. Arriving at the police station, the brothers discover the police have arrested the surviving friend as the murderer, although they aren’t sure how he could put his buddy’s head through a windshield at upwards of eighty miles per hour without moving the car. “Guns, perhaps?” the very clueless sheriff guesses.

The boys get more answers when interrogating the suspect and Dean realizes the car is none other than “The Little Bastard” – the car which once belonged to James Dean. As can be expected, the car has a bloody history, passing (often violently) from owner to owner. The only way to confirm the car is indeed “The Little Bastard” is to check the engine number, which is – you guessed it – on the engine. Dean takes great care in climbing under the car, and warns Sam not to look at “her” for fear of making her uncomfortable. A flustered Dean retrieves the engine number and hands the workload off to Sam.

Hours later, Sam calls Dean, only to find he’s in a bar hitting on chicks while Sam has been digging through the car’s ownership all day. Sam has discovered it’s a fake Little Bastard – the car’s last owner was in 1972, not 1955. But while the Winchesters wonder why their haunted car is a fake, they get another dose of weirdness. That night, a college professor turns around and exclaims “You’re supposed to be dead! You’re dead!”, moments before he is murdered . . . by Abraham Lincoln.

Not surprisingly, the local police have a totally logical explanation for this – contract killers from the CIA or NSA. After learning from the frantic maid that Abraham Lincoln was indeed the killer, Sam and Dean head back to the hotel to do more research. Upon reviewing the first suspect’s tapes, they discover a reflection in the wheels of the car – of none other than James Dean. As Sam explains, there is more lore on famous ghosts than non-famous ones, and there is something which makes Canton, Ohio special – a wax museum. Upon interviewing the owner, the Winchesters also discover the statues include genuine items from their likeness, such as Abraham Lincoln’s hat and Mahatma Gandhi’s glasses. It’s a perfect breeding ground for ghosts.
After loading up the trunk with guns and rock salt, Sam enters the hotel to find Dean on the phone to Bobby – and complaining about Sam’s overzealousness for the apocalypse. Sam closes the door, bluntly announcing his presence. The tensions boil to a head as Sam complains that their so-called fresh start really isn’t a fresh one. Dean replies it’s as fresh as it’s going to get and heads out the door, with Sam reluctantly following.

Back at the museum, Sam and Dean enter with shotguns and rock salt. Sam prepares to burn Lincoln’s hat when he is separated from Dean and attacked by Gandhi himself. Dean breaks through the door and dispatches the ghost by burning his glasses. The next morning, Dean is ready to leave Canton, since the ghosts should be gone. Sam, on the other hand, isn’t so sure. After all, what attacked him in the wax museum didn’t seem like Gandhi – as he hesitantly explains the peace leader was a fruitarian, not a squirrelly, flesh-eating psychopath. Sam also tells Dean they can’t go back to the way they were before – because that way didn’t work. Sam needs to grow up and Dean needs to let him, but before Dean can reply, he gets a phone cal. There’s been another attack.

In the sheriff’s office, Sam and Dean talk to two teenage girls who have been attacked. They explain their friend has been kidnapped by someone – someone they expected to be a lot nicer, but someone who looked really good. They soon reveal it was none other than Paris Hilton. Though Dean is excited about hunting Paris Hilton, the Winchesters soon realize this puts a whole new twist into their plan and set out to see what they missed. While performing an autopsy, Sam finds two seeds in the bodies of the previous victims. Sure enough, the seeds are from a European forest said to be guarded by a shape-shifting god keen on human sacrifices.

In the wax museum once again, Sam and Dean enter a new exhibit aimed at Generation Y. There they find the abducted girl, alive but unconscious. Before they can rescue her, they are attacked by Paris Hilton – who takes them down with frightening speed and agility. Upon awakening, the Winchesters find Hilton sharpening the knife, mocking this new world for embracing celebrities with little white dogs and fake tans instead of old religions and powerful gods. She prepares to feed on Dean, threatening to even take the form of Dean’s own fallen idol – his father John – when Dean breaks free and attacks her. But as Paris gains the upper hand, Sam grabs the axe and decapitates the ancient god with several swings. He then doesn’t hesitate to point out Dean just got wailed on by Paris Hilton.

Leaving town, Dean tells Sam the kidnapped girl has recovered, and the police have put an APB on Paris Hilton. He also tells Sam he was right about what he said early, and that he was too busy watching his brother to realize the effect it was having. The episode ends with a subtle change in the Winchester dynamic, as Dean hands Sam the keys to the Impala – and asks if he wants to drive.

This was a pretty good episode which gets away from the apocalyptic mythos as well as the clash between angels and demons – and back to ghosts, monsters and pagan gods. There was more of an emphasis on humor in this episode, ranging from Dean’s cracks about Gandhi to the sheer ridiculousness of a killer Abraham Lincoln. While there were more laugh-out-loud moments in this episode than the rest of the season so far, I did feel the humor was slightly forced, especially with the tensions boiling between the brothers in the background.

However, the episode is noteworthy in the ways both subtle and not that Sam and Dean actually repair their relationship. Dean handing off his keys to Sam is a major milestone for the characters. Though Dean has slowly given Sam more access to the Impala over the years (even showing Sam how to repair the Impala in Season 3), this hand-off is crucial as it finally shows the brothers as equals instead of rivals. How this sudden maturity will effect the dynamic in the long run remains to be seen, but at the very least it shows the Winchesters taking steps to mend fences – something which seemed virtually out of the question four episodes prior.

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