The Kids Are Alright

Summary
Dean visits Lisa, an old fling he hooked-up with nine years ago, and is shocked to learn not only that she has an 8-year-old son named Ben, but that the boy looks just like him. Later, Sam and Dean help when Ben goes missing; and Ruby contacts Sam with information about his mom.

Recap
A woman steps outside the door of her house on a presumably cold night. Her ex-husband pulls in the driveway with her daughter, who comes running out of the car into her mother’s arms frightened completely. Her husband said she begged him to bring her back. When her mothers questions her daughter as to why she didn’t want to stay with her dad, she reveals that there are monsters at his house who are scaring her.

Later that evening, the guy is doing some woodwork in his garage. He looks up at the clock which reads 12:55a.m. He decides to call it a night. As he’s walking to the door, we see something creeping around behind the car. When he shuts the light off in the garage, the power saw flips on. He walks back over to the table and turns the blade off. When he turns the light back off, the blade starts running again. He walks back over and as he turns around, something attacks him from behind the car, causing him to fall on the blade flat on his back. Blood comes gushing out of his mouth as he lies dead on the table.

Sam is on the phone with Bobby discussing a possible way to get Dean out of his demon deal, but immediately hangs up when Dean walks in. Dean informs Sam about the death of the man in Cicero, Indiana who fell on a power saw, but also confesses that he wants to go visit an old flame of his named Lisa who he hooked up with 8 years ago. Despite Sam’s feelings he agrees to take the drive out there.

Dean drops Sam off at a local motel in the area and drives off to a small up class neighborhood called “Morning Hill”. Dean shows up on Lisa’s doorstep and she’s incredibly surprised to see him. An awkward long moment of silence occurs before she tells him that he came at a bad time because they’re having a party. However, Dean persuades her to invite him in. Lisa tells him the party is for her son Ben who’s 8 years old. When Dean meets Ben, he’s appalled by the shocking resemble Ben has to Dean. He looks just like Dean and appears to also have a love for AC/DC. When Dean approaches Ben, he finds Ben’s choice of phrases seemingly odd for an 8-year-old. Phrases such as “This moon bounce, it’s epic.” and “It’s like hot chick city out there.”

Back inside the house Lisa is talking to the wife of the power saw victim. She tells Lisa that she’s got a very bad feeling that Katie isn’t Katie, that the girl sitting in the next room is not her daughter. Lisa dismisses her theory and tells her that she’s been through a lot and that she’s going to get her some help. Dean approaches Lisa and comes right out and asks her if Ben’s his son, due to the high resemblance and him turning 8. Lisa assures him that he’s not the father. Sam is sitting in the local dinner, when Ruby walks in and joins him at the table. Sam immediately asks her about the knife she had. She doesn’t reveal much except that it sure does come in handy when you’re tracking down demons. When he asks her why she’s following him, she tells him that she’s a hunter and that she’s interested in him because he’s the sole survivor of the special psychic kids whom the yellow-eyed demon had plans for. She thinks there’s still plans out there for Sam, especially after what the yellow-eyed demon did to Mary and her friends. However, Ruby sees that Sam has a little catching up to do when she notices the blank look in his eye. She tells him to dig into Mary’s past (her friends) and then to give her a call and they’ll talk again. After she walks out of the diner, Dean calls Sam and informs him there is a job in this town. Apparently there were four other accidents prior to the power-saw man’s death that went unreported. There’s something going on in this community that the residents can’t escape.

Donna wakes up from a nap on the couch to find Katie sitting next to her watching her sleep. Katie gives Donna a hug and Donna notices in the mirror that Katie’s skin is old, wrinkly, and grey.

Sam visits one the previous victim’s houses to try and dig up any clues about the death. He notices on the back side of the house where he fell, two small splatters of blood on the window sill. He also notices a strange red mark on the back of the woman’s neck.

Later, Donna gives Katie her food and heads up to the bathroom to inspect something in her neck. She locks herself in, but Katie comes up and bangs on the door repeatedly, yelling at Donna to let her in. The doorbell rings and Katie goes down to answer it.

Meanwhile Dean pays a visit to the neighborhood park where he finds Ben sitting on the bench by himself all sad. Dean goes over by him and asks what’s wrong. Ben tells him one of his friends stole his game and won’t give it back. Dean says he’ll go get it but Ben objects saying, “Only bitches send a grown up over and I’m not a bitch.” Dean uses this as an opportunity to teach Ben a thing or two. He tells Ben to go over and fight to get his game back. Ben walks over and gives that kid a kick where it hurts. However Lisa isn’t the least bit pleased when she sees what’s going on. She tells Dean to leave the two of them alone and walks off. But Ben runs back to give Dean a hug before they leave.

Back at Donna’s house, she and Katie get in the car to go for ice cream. Looking into the rear view mirror, Donna doesn’t see Katie, but in fact sees the face of a monster. She now knows that girl is not her daughter. Donna drives the car to the nearby lake, gets out and lets the car sink to the bottom with Katie inside. However, she returns home only to find Katie sitting in the kitchen dripping wet. Dean returns to the motel telling Sam that something’s wrong with the kids in this town. Sam informs Dean that there’s a changeling in every victims home. Changelings can easily mimic children. They sneak into the house through the kids window and snatch the kid and always leave a blood stain near the window sill. They then take the kid’s form and feeds off of the mother, which causes the mothers to have a red scar on the back of their necks. Usually a changeling will feed on the mother for three weeks before she croaks out. The Changelings take the real kids and stashes them somewhere underground, which means they could still be alive. The only way to kill a changeling is by torching them.

Dean wastes no time at all and makes a stop back at Lisa’s house and discovers that Ben has been taken by the changeling, when he notices the blood stains on the window sill. The boys head over to a vacant home that’s under renovation where they think the kids might be trapped. They indeed find all the kids trapped in the house. However, they also encounter the changeling taking on the form of an adult woman, the neighborhood realtor. This creature is putting quite a fight. She is not going down easily. Ben and Dean manage to get all the kids out of the house and after several rounds of kicks and punches, the boys finally torch this sucker to shreds, which in return causes all the changeling children to dissipate into thin air.

Dean returns Ben to Lisa who is overjoyed that he’s okay. Dean explains to her about the changeling, which she finds very hard to believe. Looking at Ben listening to his music, he asks Lisa again if she’s sure that Ben is not his son. She tells Dean that she had a blood test done when Ben was a baby and he’s off the hook. Dean looks very disappointed because he’s got a year left to live and what’s he going to leave behind? But he also realizes that as much as Ben is a phenomenal kid, this is not his life and he’s willing to accept that. Sam has called Ruby over and tells her that all of Mary’s friends and family were systematically killed one at a time. Ruby tells Sam that’s the work of the yellow-eyed demon covering his tracks. Sam finally demands in her face that she tell him who she is. Without further a due, she reveals her demonic black eyes. Sam now realizing that she is one of the demons they let out of the devil’s gate he reaches in his bag for the holy water. Ruby insists that he shouldn’t be so quick to pull the gun on her. She says that she’s there to help him. She doesn’t know why the yellow-eyed demon killed all of Mary’s friends but she does know that it has something to do with what the yellow-eyed demon did to him when he was a baby and that Ruby wants to help him find out what that is. Ruby also tells him that if he allows her to help him, there’s something in it for him and that is that she can help him save Dean from his demonic deal.

Featured Supernatural Being

 * Changeling
 * Demon

Featured Music
"If It Ain't Easy" by Steve Carlson

"40,000 Miles" by Goodnight City

Quotes
Sam: You're a demon!

Ruby: Don't be such a racist.

Dean: Hey. So, I, uh, met Ben. Cool kid.

Lisa: Yeah.

Dean: You know, I couldn't help but notice that, uh, he's turning 8. You and me... you know.

Lisa: You're not trying to ask me if he's yours?

Dean: No. No, of course not. He's not, is he?

Lisa: What? No.

Dean: Right.

Sam: That knife you had... you can kill demons with that thing?

Ruby: Sure comes in handy when you have to swoop in and save the damsel in distress.

Sam: Where'd you get it?

Ruby: Skymall.

Sam: So let me get this straight. You want to drive all the way to Cicero just to hook up with some random chick?

Dean: She was a yoga teacher. That was the bendiest weekend of my life!

Sam: (trying to cover up his phone call) Oh, I was just ordering pizza.

Dean: Dude, you do realize that you're in a restaurant?

Sam: Yeah! Oh, yeah, yeah... (lamely) I just felt like pizza, y'know?

Dean: Okay... Weirdy McWeirderton.

Trivia

 * The episode's title is the name of an album, song by and a rokcumentary on The Who.
 * When Sam is researching changelings on the Internet, each window has basically the same text. The text is mostly word-for-word from Wikipedia's entry on changelings.
 * Katie's mom is reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.
 * When Dean is entering the development, where the children are at, the sign says "Sold Out" but when Sam and Dean go to the house where the children are being held in cages the sign in front of the house says "For Sale."