Supernatural Recap: Real Men Don't Wear Plaid

Lightning strikes, and a corpse rises. A man watches Animal Planet in his trailer, when there’s a knock at the door. He gets up to answer it, but no one is there so he goes back to his TV. The door flies open, he goes back to shut it. He turns, and the cemetery corpse is there, it grabs him and chokes the life from him.

Sam and Dean arrive in Bobby’s hometown posing as FBI agents to investigate, but Bobby isn’t answering his phone. They head into the diner to talk to Digger Wells, a local witness. He saw Clay Thompson, aka the corpse, climb into Benny’s window and leave a few minutes later. Digger claims that Benny shot Clay a couple years back killing him, and covered it up making it look like a hunting accident. Sheriff Jody Mills comes in and asks for the boys’ IDs, demanding to speak with their supervisor. They give her a card with Bobby’s number on it, when she calls it, she recognizes Bobby’s voice before he can hang up. She lets the boys off with a warning that Bobby is a con artist and that they should steer clear of him and his half-baked plans.

The Winchesters head to Bobby’s. Bobby claims he’s been out of contact while searching for a way to beat the devil, but Dean is not buying it. Bobby’s also too quick to note that he’s checked into Benny’s death and that Digger is a drunk who made the whole thing up.

They decide to leave town, but on the way out, something is eating at Dean and they stop by the cemetery,  just in case Bobby missed anything. Clay’s coffin shoes signs that he did indeed claw his way out. So they head to Clay’s house, where everything seems normal.  Clay attacks Dean, but he’s quickly subdues. The brothers slip into their FBI personas and Clay agrees to turn himself in for Benny’s murder. He killed the man who killed him, but he is willing to pay for it. Clay’s wife calls the police, insisting that her husband is harmless, but the boys escort him out. Ad Dean prepares to shoot him, Sam stops him, believing that Clay isn’t a monster. Sheriff Mills responds to Clay’s wife call, and arrests Dean and Sam for threatening a town citizen, claiming they have no right to shoot Clay.

In their cell, the boys try to figure out what the heck is happening and how the sheriff is involved. Bobby bails them out, and tells them to go. Five days ago the dead began to rise, but there is nothing they can do about it, at his house he introduces them to Karen, his wife who passed away long ago.

Karen makes them breakfast, Dean sucks it down as Bobby explains the situation. He’s tested Karen for magic and demonic possession and there is no evidence of either. After her death her body was cremated, and the ashes buried in the cemetery where fifteen to twenty others also arose, including Sheriff Mills’ son. It may be a part of the Apocalypse, he isn’t sure, but it may be the Pale Horseman, Death’s work. Dean and Sam both agree nothing good can come from these resurrections.  But Bobby can’t help but to disagree since Karen is here and she doesn’t remember that Bobby killed her after a demon possessed her. They can hear her humming from the kitchen, and Bobby admits that in their place he’d kill her, but still he begs them not to.

They go back to the diner, trying to process the information at hand and come up with a game plan. They split up Sam to do more research and Dean to keep an eye on Bobby.

Sam checks into the Mills’ house first, and Dean does what he does best. He eats pie. Karen tells him that she knows that they’re hunters, and so is Bobby, she even knows that she is dead and the Bobby killed her. She remembers it all, but she refuses to let Bobby know, she doesn’t want him to go through that pain.

At another formerly dead’s house, Sam sees Ezra choking on the couch. He goes in to help her, and she attacks him. As they fall Sam see her husband nearby, with his stomach missing. Sam has no choice but to kill Ezra. He reports back to Bobby and Dean, but Bobby doesn’t want to believe it, saying that Ezra was never right in life, and that she was the first one to return. Dean and Sam prepare to kill Karen, but Bobby pulls a gun on them, saying that he’ll take care of her. Dean stays for Bobby, but Sam is off to warn Sheriff Mills and the rest of the town.

Owen Mills becomes ill, with a high temperature, and Jody calls the doctor. Karen too begins running a high fever and collapses.

Jody hears a scuffle, and goes to investigate, and finds her son eating his father. Distraught she backs away, as her dead child advances on her. Sam arrives just in time getting her out. He tells her what is happening and urges her to get everyone to the jail for protection, while he disposes of Owen.

Karen’s appetite begins to swell, and she begs Bobby to kill her, but he refuses and she tells him she remembers how she died the first time. Still he hesitates. A tall skeletal man brought her and the others back, and he has a message for Bobby. Dean hears the gunshot, and sees that Karen is dead.

At the jail, the townspeople are being armed by Sam and Jody. They tell them to shoot anyone who should be dead, and arm for the head.

Bobby and Dean head out to the van when Dean is attacked by Clay. As they struggle more zombies come and attack Bobby. He shoots several of them, including Clay, but its quickly apparent that there are more zombies than there are bullets and they make a break for the house, only to realize that they loaded the bullets in the van. They retreat to a closet as a last resort, when Sam and Jody come to the rescue and kill the rest of the zombies.

Later Sheriff Mills, and the boys collect the corpses to burn in the graveyard. She assures then that no one will believe the traumatized people, herself one of them. Bobby, at his wife’s funeral pyre apologizes for threatening them. Dean points out that at least he got a few more days with his wife, but Bobby admits that it worsened his sorrow and guilt. Bobby finally delivers Deaths message: Anyone that helps the Winchesters will suffer.

Sam tries to offer assurances, and confirm he’s still with them, but Bobby doesn’t give him an answer, and maybe that’s an answer in itself.