Rattle, Rattle Tacky Blue Glitter THEN! Last year, Bobby pawned his immortal, hairy soul to Chief Crossroads Demon Crowley, who then rather rudely refused to return it, as Crowley now views Bobby's immortal, hairy soul as insurance against all sorts of nasty things Our Intrepid Heroes might do to him. Also, a very long time ago, we met Rufus Turner, who had a certain special way with sawed-off pump-action shotguns and a taste for Johnnie Walker Blue. We then met Jody Mills, the efficient sheriff of Sioux Falls, who forged an uneasy alliance with Bobby and the boys back when the unquiet dead of southeastern South Dakota rose from their graves practically begging to have their heads blown off. Since then, of course, Bobby regained full use of his squishy legs with a little assist from the aforementioned Crossroads Chief, and Dashing El Deano began to suspect that Darling Sammy Might Possibly Have Come Back Wrong For The Fifth Or Sixth Time Since This Godforsaken Show Began.

Rattle, Rattle Tacky Blue Glitter NOTHING! I know you were expecting the Tacky Blue Glitter NOW! at this point, but the NOW! got the week off because this first scene's taking place "One Year Ago," if the little card that eventually appears at the bottom of the screen is telling us the truth. You never know with this show. So, instead of the NOW!, we get a couple of seconds of inky blackness, from which Bobby's ancient television set eventually emerges. It's tuned to KLOT Channel 44, which is (or, you know, was) broadcasting images of a ferocious hurricane that attacked the Galveston coast for all of one day before vaporizing, almost as if it had never existed in the first place. I believe this is meant to remind us of The Storm That (Almost) Ate Chicago and indicate that Houston was similarly on the verge of utter catastrophe when the abortive Apocalypse was suddenly averted at the last possible minute, though to be honest with you, I completely missed the "One Year Ago" card when this episode first aired, and I thought the sudden disappearance of Hurricane Tiffany simply represented yet another example of how strange things have become since The Apocalypse ended last season.

Anyway, the camera slowly tracks away from the TV to land upon a dark summoning ritual already in progress. Six flaming black candles have been arranged atop the intricate sigil Bobby's chalked onto his desk, and there's a silver bowl off to the side brimming with (I'm guessing) yarrow flowers. As the somewhat intrusive underscoring thrums away on the soundtrack, Bobby slices open the palm of his left hand to drip a little blood into the bowl, then Enochiates while striking a match, which he tosses on top of the grisly mix. A tiny flash of red illuminates Bobby's face as the camera tracks along behind his back, and by the time the camera's reached his right side, Crowley's materialized to lounge in the archway leading to Bobby's kitchen. "Been making merry, have we?" Crowley opens. "Bite me," Bobby retorts. "If that's your thing," Crowley shrugs. The demon smirks a bit at his own little joke before stepping forward into the parlor proper, at which point he snaps his fingers at Bobby's TV to fry the thing's circuits. He smirks again, just to rub it in, then drily observes, "That swan dive of Sam's was a thing of beauty -- tens all the way 'round, standing O from the Romanian judge -- you should be proud, Bobby! As deaths go, it wasn't too shabby." God love him. Even he knows how shitty those special effects were.