By Paula R. Stiles

Tagline: Every Leap Year night, Morton House turns into the pinnacle of paranormal phenomena. No one has ever stayed the entire night and the Ghostfacers are on the case. But will the ghosts of Morton House prove too dangerous, or will the ‘Facers’ arch rivals, Sam and Dean Winchester, steal the case from them?

Recap: After a recap involving Dean’s deal and some djinn action, and a quickie summary of season one’s “Hell House”, the episode starts off with Harry Spengler and Ed Zeddmore (from “Hell House”, dressed up in evening jackets and swirling brandy while they speak to the camera in deep, melodramatic voices. They’re doing the pilot for a new ghost hunters reality show (and this is it). They invite whatever producer is watching to join them (if he/she dares) in discovering the best evidence for the existence of the supernatural, ever.

We then cut to credits (to the tune of the hilarious “Ghostfacers” theme song), which include Ed, Harry, Spruce the self-proclaimed “shaman” of their group, Ed’s adopted sister Maggie, Corbett the intern, Sam, and Dean (characteristically flipping the camera a blurry bird).

We then watch the Ghostfacers prepare for their “mission” in Ed’s father’s garage. They’re taking on the case of Morton House, a place that is haunted only one night every four years: February 29. They break in at night, though they’re nearly flushed out by two guys in a muscle car (Sam and Dean) with the radio blaring, “We’re an American Band”. But as soon as the car leaves, the coast is clear and in the Ghostfacers go.

They set up “Command Center 1…the Eagle’s Nest” with laptops, camcorders, infrared goggles and the like. Then they start their investigation, which consists mainly of walking around the house, yelling at the ghosts to talk to them (always smart – not). Harry finds a dead rat and freaks out, but nothing else is coming up. Ed and Corbett get more than they bargained for on the first floor when “cops” come storming in, yelling at them to get out. But Ed recognizes them – they’re “those ******** from Texas.” Sam and Dean are busted. And we start to get the idea that Dean curses like a sailor (something we already suspected).

This doesn’t stop Sam and Dean from trying to round up the Ghostfacers and get them out of the house by midnight, pointing out that other people have stayed overnight in the house in the past, but have always disappeared. This plan is scuppered by a couple of things: first, Harry and Maggie encounter a “death echo” of a ghost reliving its moment of death. Second, Corbett goes off alone and is kidnapped. Midnight strikes; the camera gets rolling static; and suddenly, none of them can get out. The house is, according to Sam, “under a supernatural lockdown” until dawn. The Ghostfacers discover this by eavesdropping on a huge fight between the brothers where Sam is angrily telling Dean that he was stupid to come, seeing Morton House as his final “Everest”.

The priority then becomes finding the missing Corbett. Dean finds a box of old papers and discovers that the owner of the house, a Freeman Daggett, used to work at the local hospital as a janitor. He was also an Ed Gein type who liked to bring home bodies from the morgue “to play”. And he was a survivalist who believed the world was going to end in a nuclear holocaust.

Then things get ugly. Maggie wanders off, but is reeled back in by Dean. As they come back, the camera static rolls again and Sam disappears, his flashlight falling to the ground.

Dean starts off calm, but gets increasingly edgy, especially after he has to break up a fight. Ed catches Harry and Maggie kissing and attacks Harry. Dean busts it up, snarling, “We’re already down two people!” before roaming off to look for Sam some more.

Meanwhile, Sam wakes up in Daggett’s underground bomb shelter, across a moldy birthday party table from Corbett. Daggett kills Corbett right in front of Sam, then sticks a birthday hat on Sam’s head while “It’s My Party” plays in the background.

Upstairs, Dean realizes that Daggett must have had a bomb shelter. He runs downstairs, the Ghostfacers pelting behind him. Daggett slams the door between them, trapping Dean and Spruce downstairs and the other Ghostfacers upstairs. Dean tells them to get salt from his duffel, make a circle and get inside it, which they do. While Dean and Spruce (mostly Dean, while Spruce watches) bust Sam out of the bomb shelter, Ed, Harry and Maggie see Corbett’s death echo upstairs. Sam explains to Spruce and Dean that Daggett stole the bodies, had a birthday party and then killed himself. When Dean asks Sam how he knows this, Sam says, “He told me.”

Harry tells Ed that he has to go tell Corbett he loves him and beg him to help them. At that moment downstairs, Sam and Dean are being tossed around like rag dolls by Daggett. But Corbett appears and attacks Daggett. They both disappear into a ball of light.

Ed and Harry end with a pretentious coda in the same suits where they inform Corbett that he is now a “full Ghostfacer”. After a brief tribute to Corbett, quoting him from a video interview Spruce did of him, the pilot ends, and we pull out to Sam and Dean, flabbergasted, watching the credits.

Sam and Dean try to warn the Ghostfacers that showing this footage to the world wouldn’t be the best idea, though they do admit that the pilot itself “wasn’t half-awesome”. When they’re ignored, they apparently admit defeat and leave. But Dean has left behind his duffel bag, with a strange device inside. This device wipes all of the Ghostfacers’ equipment, including their hard drives. As we hear shrieks of horror from inside, we see the brothers fleeing to their car, knowing they’ve erased the whole thing – including the fact that they are still alive (something they don’t want to share with the FBI or any demons). They roar off in the Impala to the tune of the Ghostfacers theme song.

Review: It’s funny how much hate this episode generated in some quarters. It was funny, goofy, experimental – both in format and protagonists – and a lot of fans really hated it. Complaints ranged from the fact that Sam and Dean “barely” appeared in it to the fact that the Ghostfacers were too “ordinary”, to the handheld camera work, to the bleeped out swearing and rude gestures (mostly from Dean), to the theme song.

I gotta admit that I am a hard sell on most of those things (though I like experiments and I don’t mind swearing), yet I liked them all and I loved this episode. The constant bleeping was especially hilarious in a British gangster flick sort of way. “Ghostfacers” is a very funny satire on ghost hunter shows and does a great rundown of all the usual clichés (like wandering around, trying to goad a ghost into talking to you, then running away, shrieking, when you see or hear something). It doesn’t make fun of ghost hunters per se (no experienced paranormal investigator would do half the things the Ghostfacers do), but of those amateurs who go mucking about, half-cocked, and especially the ones who do TV shows for money.

Are Ed and Harry true believers? Hard to say. They’re certainly mercenary and self-absorbed, but that doesn’t preclude their being devoted to paranormal investigations, as well. If anything, their obsession with making a buck on such barren ground would indicate they’re both a little obsessed. They are not very likeable, and unlikeable characters can be difficult to write well (coughStargate: Universecoughcough), but I wouldn’t call them “ordinary” in the sense that everyone who isn’t a hunter like Sam and Dean is a jerk like Ed and Harry (and, to a lesser extent, Maggie and Spruce). It’s more that Ed and Harry really hate being ordinary and will do anything to be extraordinary. Unfortunately, they lack the brains and the soul to ever reach that goal.

This shows in the characters who are extraordinary – Sam and Dean (of course) and Corbett. Corbett doesn’t seem very promising at first. He’s a good-looking kid, but his goofiness takes away any grace or style. He’s sweet but awfully naïve. He nurses an unrequited crush on Ed that makes him foolish and that the other Ghostfacers mock. And yet, when the chips go down, he reaches out from beyond death and saves everyone’s ass. Corbett is a real Hero. The tragedy of the episode is that none of the other Ghostfacers ever really get that.

It’s interesting how Sam and Dean react to him. Sam tries to save Corbett and is horrified by his murder. Later, Sam complains that the Ghostfacers have exploited him as much in death as in life. Sam is also the one who realizes that everything Daggett did, he did out of loneliness. This point sails right over Spruce’s head when Sam says that, but Dean gets it. Of course Dean gets it.

The episode’s treatment of Dean is most interesting of all. His deal comes up several times in the episode, an ongoing mystery that Dean refuses to talk about. This outside view of the brothers is one reason why I don’t mind the protags being the Ghostfacers for this one. Dean is really pretty fascinating from the outside. Were I a producer, I’d be saying, “Forget these goofy kids. What’s going on with that guy and his brother? The one that swears like a sailor and flips everybody off. What’s his story?” It’s not because Dean is good-looking, either, but because he’s the one character in this “pilot” who has a mystery to him. Maybe it’s the script by Ben Edlund and the direction of Phil Sgriccia, but it’s cool to see how you can translate something fantastical like Dean’s deal into a “reality show” setting and still make it work. Good job.

Fun lines:

Spruce: I am 15/16 Jew and 1/16 Cherokee. My grandfather is a mohel. My great-grandfather was a talus maker. And my great-great-grandfather was a degenerate gambler who had a peyote addiction.

Ed [to Dean]: Listen, Chisel Chest, eh, we were here first.

Dean [to Maggie]: Seriously, does looking through that camera lens make you feel better, or something?

Maggie[camera dips]: Um…I…uh. [camera comes back up to Dean's face] Oh, yeah.

Dean [about why there are hospital toe tags in Daggett's things]: Daggett brought the remains home…to play.

Ed and Harry together: Ewwww!

Dean [to Maggie, who has wandered off]: Closer to the herd, okay?

Dean [to Ed and Harry through the door]: There’s some salt in my duffle. Make a circle and get inside.

Ed [confused]: Inside your duffle bag?

Dean: In the salt, you idiot!

Dean [to Spruce about why he's going to die in a few months]: I’m not gonna whine about my ******** problems to some ******** reality show. I’m gonna do my ******* job.

Spruce: Is it cancer?

Dean: Shut up!

Sam: Daggett was your Norman-Bates, stuff-your-mother kind of lonely.

Harry: Ed, you’ve gotta go be gay for that poor dead intern! You’ve gotta send him into the light!

Ed [eulogising Corbett]: You were teaching us…about how gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day.

Sam: It’s bizarre how y’all were able to honour his memory while grossly exploiting the manner of his death. Well done.

Dean: Yeah. Real tight rope you’re walking.

Sam: Well, um, our experience, you know what you get when you show people the truth [about the supernatural]?

Dean: A straitjacket. Or a punch in the face. Sometimes both.

Harry: Hey, guys, don’t be ‘Facer Haters because we happen to have gotten the footage of the century!

Ed: Menudo left their dance bag behind. What’s inside?

Tomorrow/Later today: The Curious Case of Dean Winchester: Bobby plays poker with a witch to heal himself, but loses. Dean plays and also loses. How will Sam do?

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