Everybody Loves a Clown



Summary
A mysterious carnival clown who is really an ancient Hindu cannibal, called a Rakshasa. His scariest trick: befriending children so he can slaughter and devour their parents.

Recap
Medford, Wisconsin (At Cooper's Circus): This episode opens at Cooper Circus. The place is crowded with families, rides, and freak shows. One little girl in particular sticks out of the crowd, notices a clown behind one of the booths waving to her. “Mommy look look, it’s another clown” But by the time she gets her parents attention, the clown vanished. As they’re driving home from the circus, the little girls sees the clown again off the side of the road in the shadows, waving at her. Later that evening as the girl is tucked in her bed, she notices a strange shadow on her ceiling coming from the window. She gets out of bed and walks over to the window and sees the clown waving at her from the front lawn. The girl walks downstairs, unlocks the front door, and invites the clown into the house. The clown takes her by the hand as he steps inside, shutting the door behind him.

Location Unknown: Sam and Dean stand beside each other very emotionally as they watch their dad's remains burn into ashes. Sam asks Dean if Dad said anything to him before he died. Struggling to give a response, Dean, with a lump in his throat, lies replying, “No.”

Bobby’s (one week later): Dean’s working hard on repairing the Impala. It’s been a slow process, but work is being accomplished. Dean’s getting very frustrated with Sam because he keeps asking Dean if he’s all right. Sam’s a bit surprised that Dean hasn’t shown the least bit of interest in trying to hunt this demon since their dad died. Dean says they can’t hunt this demon because they’ve got no lead on where it is and they’ve lost the only leverage they had on killing the damn thing, The Colt. Sam tells Dean that he retrieved a voicemail message on one of their dad’s old cell phones that’s four months old, from a woman named Ellen saying, “Hey John, it’s Ellen, look don’t be stubborn, you know I can help you. Call me.”

Roadhouse: Sam was able to trace an address from the number, which leads them to what appears to be an abandoned roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. Sam and Dean are temporarily driving a minivan, which was the only running vehicle Bobby had and the car makes Dean feel humiliated. The boys enter the roadhouse, and the only person present appears to be knocked out cold. As they continue to explore the roadhouse, Ellen and her daughter Jo approach them with rifles. Sam and Dean discover that this roadhouse is a meeting place for other Supernatural hunters like themselves. They tell Ellen about their dad’s death and she tells them that Ash can help track the demon. While Dean talks to Ellen's daughter Jo, (and for once doesn't try to chat the pretty girl up) Sam notices a folder behind the bar and asks Ellen if he could look at it. The folder contains an unsolved police case that occurred not far from the roadhouse. Sam and Dean agree to go check out this case.

On the road Sam looking over the details of this case explains to Dean that there have been several murders over the past month in this small town, with the most recent murder occurring last week. The suspect is said to be disguised as a clown from Cooper’s Circus. He left the daughter unharmed and murdered the parents (ripping them to shreds). The cops have no viable lead. All the employees at the circus were tearing down equipment at the time of the murder, and the girl claims to have seen a clown vanish into thin air. However, the cops are saying that it’s trauma. Similar murders occurred back in 1981 at Bunker Brothers Circus (same deal). Usually spirits are settled in a particular location. Sam and Dean believe that a cursed object could be leading this spirit to move from city to city.

Funhouse (at Cooper’s Circus): Evan and his dad walk through the fun house. Evan is playing a videogame, not showing any interest in the funhouse. As Evan continues to walk through the funhouse, he notices a clown in one of the mirrors waving to him. Evan tells his dad that he saw a clown and looks scared. His dad tries to calm him down by telling him that clowns are his friends and that there’s nothing to be scared of. The next morning at Evan’s house, Evan walks into his parents’ room, waking his dad up. “Dad, you were right, he is my friend.” Looking at up Evan, his dad sees the evil clown standing at his bedside holding Evan’s hand and starts screaming.

Cooper’s Circus: If a cursed object is dragging the clown from place to place, they’re going to have to EMF scan the entire carnival, but Sam says, “That’s like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. It could be anything.” Sam and Dean decide to get jobs at the circus so they will blend in with the crowd. While looking for Mr. Cooper, Sam and Dean encounter a blind man throwing knives.

After leaving Mr. Cooper’s office, Dean asks Sam whether he really meant what he told Cooper about not wanting to go back to school. Sam tells Dean that he’s been having second thoughts, thinking that their dad would want him to stick with the job.

Later, while litter picking (their job for Cooper) the boys split up and start scanning around the carnival with their EMF’s, but find nothing. When they meet up again by the funhouse, they notice a little girl telling her mom, “Mommy, look at the clown!” But Sam and Dean see nothing. They believe that this little girl is the spirit’s next victim. They decide to stake out her house that night, to make sure. While watching the house, they see the girl open the front door and take someone invisible to them by the hand and they walk upstairs, heading for her parents’ room. They manage to break into the house in time to stop the clown and fire a few rounds of rock salt into the clown, but the clown still manages to escape.

On the road Sam and Dean ditch the minivan off the side of an empty road, fearing that the girl’s parents saw their license plates. Sam confronts Dean about his strong silence towards their dad’s death. Dean, very pissed off, again tells Sam that he's okay and that the next person who asks him if he’s ok, he’s going to start “throwing punches”. Dean finds it weird that Sam spent his entire life fighting with him, and now he wants to do what he would’ve wanted. Dean says it's too little, too late.

Sam calls Ellen and asks her opinion on this killer clown. She says her best guess would be that it’s a rakshasa. It’s a race of Hindu creatures that take on human form and feed on human flesh. They can make themselves look invisible and they can’t enter home without first being invited. Rakshasas live in squalor, sleeping on a bed of dead insects. They have to feed a few times every 20 to 30 years, which would explain the murders at Bunker Brothers Circus back in '81. Ellen also tells Sam that the one sure way to kill it is by using a dagger of pure brass. They think that Cooper is the spirit because he did work at both shows.

Cooper’s Circus: Dean visits the blind man they met earlier thinking, he might have a dagger of brass. Meanwhile, Sam sneaks into Cooper’s office looking for “bed bugs” and is caught by Cooper at gunpoint. The blind man invites Dean into his office and asks him to open the trunk in the corner. When Dean opens it, he finds the clown suit, realizing that it’s the blind man. Looking back, Dean watches as the blind man vanishes into thin air and starts throwing knives at Dean, but he bursts out of his office, without getting hit.

Funhouse: Sam and Dean head into the funhouse to try and trap the blind man. However, the blind man made himself invisible to them and starts throwing knives once again at Dean. Sam breaks a brass piece of the organ off and Dean, who's pinned, turns on and lets steam come through the vent so they can see the invisible figure and when he sneaks up behind Sam, he spikes the brass metal into the blind man. In the midst of all the steam leaving the room, we hear the blind man screaming as he decomposes into a pile of dust.

Back at the roadhouse, Ellen is very pleased with the boys work on this case. Meanwhile, Ash, who’s been tracking the demon for the past 51 hours, tells Sam and Dean that the demon is nowhere to be found. However, if any of the signs (cattle mutilations and electrical storms) pop up in another city, he will know about it. He said he’ll call them when he hears anything. Jo also tells Dean she'd like to see him again, even after he confesses normally he'd be hitting on her but this is the 'wrong time, wrong place.'

At Bobby’s Place, Dean is once again working on repairing the Impala. Sam approaches him to apologize for trying to pick a fight with their dad the last time he saw him. For all he knows, their dad died thinking that Sam hated him. He also realizes that what he’s doing really is too little and that it’s too late to make up for the things in the past. Sam says that he feels “guilty as hell” and that he’s not all right. But also tells Dean that neither is he. After Sam walks away, in the midst of the silence, Dean takes a crow bar and smashes the glass of the door of one of the scrap cars, then the Impala’s trunk, with all his strength, finally releasing all the anger and emotion that was built up inside of him.

Characters

 * Sam Winchester


 * Dean Winchester
 * Jo Harvelle
 * Ellen Harvelle
 * Ash

Featured Supernatural Being

 * Rakshasa

Featured Music
"Time Has Come Today" by The Chamber Brothers

"Shambala" by Three Dog Night

"Do That To Me One More Time" by The Captain & Tennille

"Mudd Walk" by Bad Poodle

Continuity

 * The Impala is still damaged from the previous episodes.
 * Sam and Dean give their father (John Winchester) a hunter's funeral pyre, John died in the previous episode after making a deal with the Yellow Eyed Demon.
 * First episode to feature Jo, Ellen and Ash.

Quotes
Ellen: "Here you go."

Dean: "Thanks... You called our Dad and said you could help. Help with what?"

Ellen: "Well... The Demon, of course. I heard he was closing in on it."

Dean: "Was there an article in the Demon Hunters Quarterly that I missed? The ma - -. Who - -Who are you? How do you know all about this?"

Dean: (in regards to Ash's mullet) "Hey man..."

Ash: "Yeah?"

Dean: "I dig the haircut."

Ash: (running his hands through his hair) "All business up front, party in the back."

Dean: "I know what you're thinking Sam. Why did it have to be clowns?"

Sam: "Oh, give me a break."

Dean: (laughs) "You didn't think I remember, do you? Come on, you still bust out crying when you see Ronald McDonald on the television."

Sam: "At least I'm not afraid of flying."

Dean: "Planes crash!"

Sam: "And apparently clowns kill."

Sam: "Thanks a lot..."

Trivia

 * This episode is dedicated to the memory of Peter Ellis, a director of the show. Ellis died in April of 2006.

International Titles

 * Finnish: Kaikki rakastavat klovnia (Everybody Loves a Clown)


 * French: Le Clown (The Clown)


 * German: Alle lieben Clowns (Everybody loves Clowns)
 * Polish: Wszyscy kochają Klowny (Everybody loves Clowns)