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Recap of Supernatural
Season 5, Episode 5
Fallen Idols
Written by Julie Siege.
Directed by James L. Conway.
Air Date: October 8, 2009.
Sam and Dean are reunited and on the hunt again. They reach a small town and investigate a string of very strange murders. A man who has found James Dean's car, "Little Bastard", is found dead as if he has been involved in a major car crash. Another man is murdered by someone who looks just like Abraham Lincoln. Suspecting that the murders are the work of famous ghosts, the boys do research at the local wax museum, where Sam is attacked by what seems to be the ghost of Mahatma Gandhi. Shortly afterward, two girls report to the police that their friend was kidnapped by Paris Hilton, which leaves the brothers speechless. After finding peculiar seeds in the victims' stomachs, they break into the museum's construction area, where they do find Paris Hilton—who is in fact a leshi, a pagan god, in disguise, trying to settle down after its old home, a deep forest in Eastern Europe, has been cut down. By touching their possessions, the god can turn itself into famous people and kill their fans in order to feed on their blood. Sam kills it by decapitating it with an iron ax. Before leaving town, Dean tells Sam that starting the Apocalypse isn't his fault alone, as he himself had broken the first seal, and that they shouldn't think about the whole vessel thing too much but instead fight together.
Body count
For this episode = 2 humans and 1 god.For the series so far = At least 328 humans (of which 5 were witches), 39 demons, 28 ghosts, 11 vampires, 6 changelings, 4 angels, 4 gods, 3 shapeshifters, 3 zombies, 2 ghouls, 2 werewolves, 2 dogs, 1 crocotta, 1 djinn, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 reaper, 1 rugaru, 1 shtriga, 1 siren, and 1 wendigo.
Tropes
- Adam Westing: Paris Hilton. Sort of, she's not really playing herself, but she does poke a bit of fun at herself.
- Agent Scully: Sheriff Rick Carnegie who, despite the increasingly weird killings going on, keeps insisting on perfectly mundane explanations.
- Ax-Crazy:Dean: You know, I gotta tell you, you are not the first god we've met, but you are the nuttiest.
- Bait-and-Switch: The culprit is not an evil car or walking waxwork dummies.
- In the wax museum, Sam (6'4" Jared Padalecki) stands next to a slightly-shorter Abe Lincoln. We hear Dean say, "Dude, he's short" before cutting to Dean and Gandhi.
- Big Bad: Leshii, a forest god that takes the form of celebrities to kill the people that admired them.
- Breather Episode: Set after several plot-heavy episodes and the rather dark "The End" (S05, E04).
- Celebrity Paradox: While fighting the leshi, Dean says he's never seen the House of Wax (2005) remake, which stars Paris Hilton...and Jared Padalecki. Dean's brother Sam A.K.A. Jared Padalecki gives Dean a hurt look.
- Cool Car: Little Bastard. Played with, as it's not the real Little Bastard, but it's still a sweet Porsche 550 Spyder.
- Dead Person Impersonation: The leshi poses as James Dean, Abraham Lincoln, and Mahatma Gandhi while killing their fans. Subverted when it tries to turn into John Winchester to eat Dean, but the Winchesters kill it before it can.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Dean talks gently to Little Bastard so it won't kill him.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: The Spanish housekeeper who's actually named Consuela.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With
- Homicide Machines/Vehicular Assault: Little Bastard—only it's not.
- I Was Beaten by a Girl: Sam pokes fun at Dean for getting his ass kicked by the leshi in Paris Hilton's form.
- Off with His Head!: Sam chops off the leshi's head with an iron ax to kill it. While it's still in Paris Hilton form.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Carson's accent wanders around quite a bit for the two minutes he's on screen.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The maid crying to go home to El Salvador after seeing one of the killings.
- Spoiler Opening: Paris Hilton's name leads off the "guest starring" block of credits. It doesn't take an exceptional feat of memory to hang onto it long enough to grasp the episode's celebrity theme and then make a wise bet on what form the antagonist will take at the climax.
- Suddenly Bilingual: Sam knows Spanish. Justified a bit, since he explains he took freshman Spanish and the dialogue is limited.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The Reveal that Paris Hilton is actually in the episode doesn't happen until halfway through. Needless to say advance publicity spoiled this surprise.
- Take That!: The Leshi throws some shade on modern day idolatry, berating humans for going from worshipping gods to worshipping celebrity.
- Villain Has a Point
- Voluntary Shapeshifting
- World's Smallest Violin: Dean pulls this on Sam.
