RECAP

Providence, Rhode Island

A woman, Gloria, is watching TV in her apartment and is clearly in poor shape. She switches over the TV to a televangelist who starts to preach. She turns the TV off, but it comes back on of its own accord and the televangelist seems to speak directly to Gloria, speaking of angels. The apartment begins to shake and a glowing white light bursts through the door. A shadowy figure approaches out of the light as Gloria looks on in shock.

Later the woman is in a psychiatric hospital and Sam has slipped in dressed as an orderly. Gloria is now in much better shape but as Sam talks to her, it becomes clear that she believes that an angel visited her, and told her to stab a churchgoing man, Carl, through the heart, and that he was evil. She believes that by killing the man she gained redemption.

Sam goes back to the Winchesters’ current hotel where is Dean holed up to avoid being spotted by the police after the events at the bank in St. Louis. It turns out Gloria is the second such murderer in Providence and Sam believes there may be some actual angelic presence involved. Dean is more skeptical. Dean finally proposes they go over to Carl’s house and check things out. They go around the side of the house and check out the cellar, and find the skeleton of Carl’s victim.

In another cheap apartment, a heavy drinker named Zack is lounging around when the room shakes and the white light fills it. The shadow figure emerges again, and a few minutes later Zack crosses the street, knocks on the door, and stabs the man who answers it.

Dean hears about the murder on the police scanner and Sam has discovered that three students went missing from the college library where Carl worked. They check out the dead man’s house and discover he was instant-messaging with young girls and was supposed to meet one that day. They also discover the dead man went to the same church as Carl.

The Winchesters go to the church, Our Lady of the Angels, and talk with Father Reynolds. He mentions that Father Gregory was gunned down two months ago and was interred in the parish’s crypt. Dean grabs a photo of the dead Father Gregory and then concludes that the “angel” the killers saw was actually Gregory’s vengeful spirit. Sam doubts his theory and believes an actual angel is involved and is answering Father Reynold’s prayers.

They investigate the crypt and while Dean walks ahead Sam hears a murmuring noise and then the burst of light fills the chamber he’s in. When Dean returns, he finds Sam unconscious on the floor. Sam claims he was visited by an angel but Dean is still skeptical, since angels didn’t protect their mother. Dean then shows Sam Father Gregory’s grave, which is covered in wormwood which is associated with the restless dead. Dean says they hold a séance. They put together an impromptu ceremony but Sam spots a burst of light behind a nearby man standing at the corner. Sam insists they have to stop him so Dean locks him out of the Impala and goes after the man on his own. Sam goes to the crypt and does the séance on his own.

The man Dean follows picks up a woman and Dean follows, while an angry Father Reynolds interrupts Sam’s séance. Father Gregory’s ghost arrives and believes he is an angel summoned by Father Reynolds’ prayers. They try to convince him otherwise without success.

Dean loses the man who stops with his date and starts to molest her. Dean manages to track them down, smashes in the window, and stuns him. The woman runs away while the man takes off and Dean gives pursuit in the Impala.

Sam and Father Reynolds finally get through to Father Gregory’s spirit and Father Reynolds give Father Gregory’s last right. Father Gregory’s ghost, then, disappears. Meanwhile the would-be rapist is fleeing when a construction company pick-up swerves and as Dean looks on, a length of scaffolding slams through the windshield, killing him.

Back at the motel, Sam admits that he was wrong and Dean was right. Sam admits it’s hard to do what they do alone and he needs to believe in a higher power. In turn Dean admits that what he saw happen to the rapist has caused him to question his own skepticism, as it appeared to be a sign of… God’s will.

GUEST STARS

Denis Arndt (Father Reynolds)

Heather Doerksen (Gloria)

David Monahan (Father Gregory)

Brent Fidler (TV Evangelist)

Sean Rogerson (Rapist)

Dan Mellor (Pedophile)

Wesley Salter (Zach Smitt)

IMAGE GALLERY

Episode Stills

No Stills

Episode Screen Captures

TRAILER/CLIPS

Promo

MUSIC

“Knocking On Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan
“Down on Love” by Jamie Dunlap

QUOTES

Sam: So, no disturbances lately?
Gloria: You mean am I stark raving cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?

Sam: Dean, I saw an angel! (Dean offers him flask) I don’t want a drink.

Sam: It appeared before me and I just… this feeling washed over me. Like peace. Like grace.
Dean: Okay, ecstasy boy. Maybe we’ll get you some glow sticks and a nice Dr. Seuss hat.

Father Reynolds: What are you doing? What is this?
Sam: Father, please, I can explain. Um… actually, maybe I can’t. Um, this is, uh, a séance.
Father Reynolds: A séance? Young man, you are in a house of God!
Sam: It’s based on early Christian rites if that helps any.

Sam: I don’t know, Dean, I just, uh, I wanted to believe so badly. It’s so damned hard to do this, what we do. All alone, you know. And…there’s so much evil out in the world, Dean, I feel like I could drown in it. And when I think about my destiny, when I think about how I could end up…
Dean: Yeah, well, don’t worry about that, all right? I’m watching out for you.
Sam: Yeah, I know you are. But you’re just one person, Dean. And I needed to think that there was something else watching too, you know? Some higher power, some greater good. And that maybe I…
Dean: Maybe what?

Sam: You know, Gloria said the guy was guilty to the deepest foundation.
Dean: You think she literally meant the foundation?
Sam: Maybe I could be saved.

(Sam enters the motel room, while Dean is sitting on the bed listening to the police radio)
Dean: Did you bring quarters?
Sam: Dude, I’m not enabling your sick habit. You’re like one of those lab rats that pushes the pleasure button instead of the food button until it dies.
Dean: What’re you talking about, I eat.

Dean: Man, you have got to try this because there really is magic in the magic fingers.
Sam: Dude. You’re enjoying that way too much. It’s kinda making me uncomfortable.

Father Reynolds: So, you’re interested in joining parish?
Dean: Yeah, well you know, we just don’t feel right unless we hit church every Sunday.
Father Reynolds: So where’d you say you lived before?
Sam: Uh…
Dean: (interrupting) Freedmont, Texas.
Father Reynolds: Really? That’s a nice town. St. Theresa’s parish. You must know the priest there.
Dean: Sure, yeah… no, it’s Father… O’Malley.
Father Reynolds: I know a Father Shawnasee.
Dean: Shawnasee. Exactly…what did I say?

Sam: Why would you do that?
Gloria: Because it was God’s will.
Sam: Did God talk to you?
Gloria: I get the sense God’s a little busy for house calls.

Sam: Dude, all right, I’ll admit, we’ve gone pretty ghetto with spellwork before, but this takes the cake! I mean, a Spongebob placemat instead of an altar cloth?!
Dean: We’ll just put it Spongebob-side down.

Dean: If Father Gregory’s spirit is around, the seance will bring him right to us. If it’s him, we’ll put him to rest.
Sam: What if it’s an angel? It won’t show, nothing will happen.
Dean: Exactly. It’s one of the perks of the job, Sam, we don’t have to operate on faith. We can know for sure. Don’t you want to know for sure?

Dean: What’s next, you’re going to start praying everyday?
Sam: I do pray.
Dean: What?
Sam: I do pray everyday, I have for a while.
Dean: Things you learn about a guy.

Sam: Dean, what did you see?
Dean: I don’t know, maybe… God’s will.

Dean: I’ll tell you who else had faith like that. Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me.
Sam: You never told me that.
Dean: What’s to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her.

Dean: (talking to Sam) Well I learned a valuable lesson here…always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year’s, or you might get filleted by a hooker from God.

Dean: (sarcastically) That lore about unicorns is true too. I hear they ride on silver moonbeams, and shoot rainbows out of their ass.
Sam: Wait… there’s no such thing as unicorns?
Dean: That’s cute.

TRIVIA

• At 8:30 when the brothers enter the basement of the house of the first guy murdered, the outside door to the cellar is clearly secured with three different padlocks, all rusty but locked. Yet when the camera angle changes to the inside of the cellar, the brothers simply open the doors and head in.
• Dean tells Sam that while listening to the police scanner he heard that Zack stabbed a victim in the heart, but the stabbing was actually in the lower gut.
• When Zack’s room is shaking and his TV falls over you can clearly see that the power cord is neatly tied up and unplugged.
• According to Dean’s cellular phone listing, he’s playing Kashmir by Led Zeppelin, but he’s actually playing Down On Love by Jamie Dunlap.
• When Zack’s room is shaking, his lamp falls and breaks, but the light from the light bulb stays on.
• This episode was also known as “Touched.”
• Only the audio can be heard, but the show playing on Gloria’s TV is The Drew Carey Show.

ALLUSIONS

• Dean: We just need a few odds and ends and that séance ritual in Dad’s journal.
  Sam: Sounds great, I hope Whoopi’s available.
  This is a reference to the 1990 film, Ghost. In the movie, Whoopi Goldberg plays a psychic medium who communicates with ghosts.
• Dean: Yup, Roma Downey made him do it.
  This is a reference to the TV show, Touched by an Angel, in which Roma Downey plays an angel named Monica who helps people.
• Dean: We’ll just put it Spongebob-side down.
  Referencing the popular Nickelodeon animated TV show, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the main character, a yellow sponge that wears pants, works as a fry cook, and lives in a pineapple under the sea.
• Dean: Since when are you all Mr. 700 Club?
  The 700 Club is the longest-running Christian program beginning in 1966 and hosted by Pat Robertson. It is a mixture of news, commentaries and interviews about Christian life.
• Title
  Houses Of The Holy is the title of a Led Zeppelin album and is also the title of a song off of the album Physical Graffiti.

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