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Vital Statistics

Original Air Date: 18th January 2007
Production Code: 3T5511
Writer: Matt Witten
Director: Charles Beeson

Official Episode Description

Sam and Dean investigate two strange deaths at a small Connecticut inn run by a single mom whose young daughter plays with an imaginary friend. The brothers find evidence of voodoo around the inn, but soon realize the little girl's imaginary friend may in fact be a demon who is killing the townspeople.

Summary

At the Pierpont Inn (Est. 1930), Miss Thompson is showing through the building. It becomes apparent that the hotel will be closing down soon. Two girls are sitting on the balcony. One girl, Tyler complains that they’re going to love their toys, whilst the other, Maggie swears. Tyler copies and Miss Thompson picks up on it and reprimands them both. In one of the rooms, there are a lot of dolls, and Tyler creeps in to play with them. One of the dolls is lying at the bottom of the stairs with it’s head turned around. From downstairs, there’s shrieking. Tyler runs to see what’s happening and the man from earlier is lying at the bottom of the stairs dead, with his head facing backwards.

Peoria, Illinois and Sam is talking to Ellen on the phone. They’re trying to find Ava but there’s no luck. Ellen has told Sam about a case of a hotel where there have been two deaths from freak accidents, and wants to take it as a job. When Dean asks about Ava, Sam explains that he wants to keep going, and find her, but he also wants to keep saving people while the look. Dean jokes that the attitude is way too healthy. They arrive at the Pierpont Inn and Dean is excited about working the “old school haunted house” and Sam spots an urn on the porch with a symbol, which Sam recognises as hoodoo. The brothers book a room, where Miss Thompson thinks that they’re there antiquing. The two girls run through the reception and bump into them. The man who takes their bags to the room, reminisced about the hotel’s history.

Sam has dug up information on the two deaths, the first victim was Joan Edison who was handling the sale of the hotel, and second victim was Larry Williams, who was collecting for Goodwill. They go exploring round the hotel, finding more hoodoo symbols. They knock on Miss Thompson’s door and Dean tells them a story that Sam loves dolls, and asks if he can see the collection, while Sam is glaring at Dean. Sam finds an exact replica of the hotel, and in it a doll at the bottom of the stairs with it’s head twisted around. Tyler comes in, and Sam offers to fix the broken doll. Tyler insists that neither she or Maggie broke the doll, because Grandma Rose would have been mad. Miss Thompson refuses to let either of the brothers see her. Dean and Sam assume that the hoodoo was done by Rose. They plan to split up and research. Miss Thompson is talking to a lawyer, and tells her that they plan on demolishing the hotel.

Upstairs, Tyler is playing with the dolls and one is hanging from the ceiling. The lawyer pulls of his tie and hangs himself on the ceiling fan. Sam watches the coroner take away the body. Dean finds out that he worked for the company that bought the place, Dean reassures the owner that he’s fine and heads back to the room to tell Sam. Sam is drunk and tells Dean that he’s bossy and short. Sam is apparently not as healthy with his attitude. He believes that if he can save more people, he can stop himself turning into something evil. When Dean tries to put him to bed, Sam makes him promise to watch out for him, and that if he turns into something evil that Dean would kill him. Dean doesn’t want to agree, but eventually promises so that Sam will go to sleep.

Dean heads downstairs and has a conversation with the man who showed them to their rooms, who’s now tending the bar. The man explains some more of the history of the hotel to Dean. It had been in a family for over a hundred years, and that Grandma Rose had lived her whole life, and was not happy at being left. The next morning, back in the room, Sam is curled up over the toilet with a hangover, Dean taunting him a little, happy thinking that Sam doesn’t remember the night before. He tells Sam about Rose, and how her nanny was interested in hoodoo. Sam and Dean sneak into Rose’s room to speak to her, but she can’t talk back to them, and Sam realises that she’s had a stroke. Susan bursts in and sends them out of her hotel, threatening to call the police.

Susan watches the Impala leave, and goes inside where Maggie and Tyler are playing jacks. Susan gets annoyed because Tyler hasn’t started packing, because Maggie told her that they can’t leave. Susan tells Tyler that Maggie is imaginary and she’s too old to have an imaginary friend. Outside, Susan is packing the car and sees the swing start to move. Tyler is playing in the doll’s house again and the swing starts to move on it’s own. The car starts up and heads for Susan, but she’s pushed out of the way by Sam. Dean runs up and ushers them inside quickly, they explain that it’s a spirit after her, and not a hoodoo curse. Rose had the stroke a month before, and they realise that she was using the hoodoo to ward off a spirit, and no longer able to. When Sam tells her to get her daughters out of the house, Susan explains that she only has one daughter - Maggie isn’t real. Upstairs, Maggie tells Rose that Tyler’s going to stay with her and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

Sam, Dean and Susan can’t find Tyler but all of the dolls are broken. Then she remembers that Rose had an older sister Margaret who drowned in the pool. They run for the pool, where Maggie and Tyler are hanging from the rail above, with Maggie trying to persuade Tyler to jump. When the adults arrive and bang on the door, Maggie pushes Tyler off the edge and into the water where she can’t swim and starts to sink. Susan shows Dean another entrance around the back while Sam uses a plant pot to start to smash the glass. Maggie holds Tyler’s head under the water, until someone calls for her and she disappears. Sam breaks the glass and leaps into the pool to pull Tyler out.They put her on the edge but for a moment she doesn’t move. Eventually she coughs and opens her eyes, telling Sam that she can’t see Maggie anymore.

Maggie is up in Rose’s room, and says that if Rose will do something for her, then she will let the others go. She reaches out and touches her younger sister’s face and Rose smiles. Susan is helping a very wet Tyler up the stairs, promising that they will leave as soon as they’ve got Grandma Rose. Dean asks where Maggie would’ve gone and they hear a scream from upstairs, Rose has died. Rose’s body is taken away from the coroner, and they believe she had another stroke. Tyler and Susan head to a taxi, Susan giving Sam a hug before she does. Sam brings up the promise that Dean made, and tells him that he’s going to hold him to it. Dean looks as if he’s going to say something, but instead starts up the Impala and they drive away.

Upstairs in the hotel, two little girls are playing with a skipping rope and laughing with each other.

Notes

Sam mentions that they have been searching for Ava for a month.
Susan assumes that Dean and Sam are a couple - not the first time this has been insinuated (see Bugs)
The Pierpont Inn is in Cornwall, Connecticut and is probably named after the poet, John Pierpont, who was born in the county in 1785.

Cultural References

Might even run into Fred and Daphne while we're inside.
Dean is referring to two of the characters from the Scooby-Doo cartoons. In the show, the group often went investigating creepy old haunted houses.
You'll be staying in room 237.
In the 1980 film "The Shining", room 237 was the room where the dead woman was.
Think you could have hooked up some MILF action there, bud.
MILF is an acronym that stands for "Mother I'd Like to F**k", meaning a good-looking older woman.