And that little display apparently assuaged all of Mr. Cooper's many misgivings, for we next join the boys as they wander away from the fair owner's trailer as newly minted carnival employees. There follows a scene wherein Dean confronts Sam about both the whole not wanting to go back to school thing and the whole suspiciously abrupt change in Sam's attitude as far as the hunting life goes thing, but I can't focus on any of it because Jared Padalecki's hair has finally reached the point where it can spread its wings and take to the air of its own volition. As CaffeineKitty so succinctly noted on the boards, you watch this scene fully expecting Dean to interrupt Sam's little heartfelt speech with, "Hang on a second, Sam, I think your hair has a question." CUT IT. NOW. Anyway, where was I? Oh, it doesn't matter, because they cover the same territory at least two more times before the night is over. Next!

Later that day, Sam's picking up trash while clad in a carnival windbreaker within which he's cleverly concealed an EMF detector, and I do hope it's the one Dean fashioned from a Walkman, because that was too fucking cute. Anyway, nothing on the midway triggers the detector, so Sam sneaks into the fun house through the exit and starts poking around in there. Poking, poking, poking. ["Yeah, far be it from me to go to the 'dirty!' place, but: 'sneaks into the fun house through the exit and starts poking around in there .' Fantastic." -- Joe R] Sam clears the calliope and the three-headed-babies from suspicion, then nearly jumps out of his skin when a skeleton in a noose drops down from the ceiling. He passes the detector across the bones a couple of times and looks grim.

Outside, Dean interrupts his own trash detail to take a call from Sam. "What's the matter?" Dean asks upon hearing his brother's wavering tone of voice. "You sound like you just saw a clown, heh heh heh." You know, it all sort of blew past me when this initially aired, but the repeated references to Sam's phobia are beginning to annoy now that I'm typing them out. They should have stuck to the exchange in Van Morrison, the midget, and the chair, and cut everything else out of the episode. Then again, this episode's barely 39 minutes long without the Previously segment, so maybe that's why they decided to beat the dead horse. In any event, Sam tells Dean about the human skeleton in the fun house, guessing (incorrectly, as it eventually turns out) that the evil spirit's attached to its own remains. Just as Dean agrees to check it out, the blind knife thrower grabs hold of his arm and demands, "What are you doing here, kid?" Dean attempts to bluff his way out of it, but Professor Lodz calls him on his bullshit, firing off question after question about skeletons and EMFs and whatnot. "Dude," Dean Keanus, "your blind-man hearing is out of control!" Professor Lodz issues a few more words of warning about carnie justice, or something, before demanding again to know what Dean and Sam's real purpose is. Dean takes a moment, then leans in conspiratorially. "Do you believe in ghosts?" "Whaaaaa?" "My brother and me, we're...we're writing a book about 'em!" Dean then busts out this beautiful, broad smile of pride, presumably solely for the audience's benefit, because God knows that blind old bat can't see it. Or can he?