2.15 Tall Tales

Title	Tall Tales
Episode #	Season 2, Episode 15
First aired	February 15, 2007
Directed by	Bradford May
Written by	John Shiban
On IMDB	Tall Tales
Outline	Sam and Dean get cranky with each other as the try to work out what is going on with alien abductions, giant alligators and deaths in a college town.
Monster	Trickster
Timeline	5-6 dasy in mid February, 2007
Location(s)	Springfield University, Springfield, Ohio
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Synopsis

Dean and Sam investigate the apparent suicide of an adulterous professor on a university campus. The local urban legend that seems most likely the culprit turns out to be a bust. Then a frat boy is humiliated when he reports being abducted by an alien. Puzzled, and increasingly antagonistic with each other, Sam and Dean fail to find any answers when again another urban legend appears to come to life - a scientist who used animals in his experiments is killed by an alligator in the sewers.

Unable to make headway, Sam and Dean call Bobby, who comes to the town to help them out. Bobby listens Dean and Sam's stories about the case, and their irritations with each other, and works out that a Trickster is at work. They track down the most likely culprit - a janitor in the campus building where the deaths occur. The Trickster attempts to bargain with Dean in order to escape, but the three hunters manage to trap the Trickster and a fight ensues before Dean stakes the Trickster in the heart. After the three leave the building, the body Dean staked disappears and the real Trickster appears; seemingly, it has used its ability to manifest things out of thin air to deceive the hunters into thinking they were killing it, as opposed to a solid apparition. As they leave town, Sam and Dean reconcile in a touching scene - much to Bobby's disgust.

Characters

• Dean Winchester
• Sam Winchester
• Bobby Singer
• Trickster

Definitions

• Weekly World News^PoD
• Purple Nurple^PoD
• Trickster^PoD
• Anansi^PoD
• Loki^PoD
• Bustyasianbeauties.com
• Alcohol

Music

• "Walk Away" by The James Gang

(plays at the beginning of the episode; also played in 1.13 Route 666)

• "Next to You" by Junk Food

(plays during Sam's versions of events at the bar; The band Junk Food won a CW competition on MySpace to have their song "Next to You" included in the show)

• "Brenda and Me" by The Rhythm Machine

(plays during Dean's versions of events at the bar)

• "Lady in Red" by Chris DeBurgh

(plays when the fratboy is slow dancing with the alien)

• "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" by Barry White

(plays when Dean enters the hall with the two girls on the red bed)

Quotes

Sam: Dean, this is a very serious investigation. We don't have time for any of your blah blah blah blah.

Curtis: That's not even the worst...

Dean: How could it get any worse? Some alien made you his bitch.

Curtis: [downs a shot] They...well, they made me...slow dance.

Dean: These punishments, they’re almost poetic. Well, actually they’d be more like a limerick, but still...

Sam: Your dirty socks in the sink! Your food in the fridge!

Dean: What's wrong with my food?

Sam: It's not food anymore, Dean! It's Darwinism!

Bobby: You're bickering like an old married couple.

Dean: No, see, married couples can get divorced. Me and him? We're like, Siamese twins.
Sam: It's "conjoined" twins.

Dean: See what I mean?

Sam: (Dean tellng the story) Look, man, I...I know this all has to be so hard. But I want you to know... I'm here for you. You brave little soldier. I acknowledge your pain. Come here. [Grabs him in a hug] You're too precious for this world.

Trivia & References

Dean: This is my shuttle co-pilot, Major Tom.

Dean refers to Sam as "Major Tom" of "Star Command." This is a reference to the David Bowie song, "Space Oddity." The song later plays during 6.09 Clap Your Hands If You Believe....

Dean: Why don't you control your OCD?

OCD stands for Obsessive-Complusive Disorder, a psychiatric disorder.

Dean: Looks like you lost it, Poindexter.

First introduced as a character in the Felix the Cat television cartoon series in 1958, the term "Poindexter" is now applied to people who are overly nerdy, geeky, or bookish.

Bobby: Let's get the hell out of Dodge before someone finds that body.

Dodge City, Kansas was the temporary home to Wyatt Earp and was known for several famous shoot-outs.

The cinematography in the scenes depicting the alien abduction of the frat boy are highly reminiscent of The X-Files. John Shiban, the writer of this episode, also wrote for The X-Files.

Dean: What? You mean between the angry spirit and uh... the sexed up ET?

E.T.: Huge schmaltzy 1982 Spielberg movie featuring a stranded cute alien and an even cuter seven year old Drew Barrymore. The alien had a long finger that glowed.

The use of the Trickster character, in particular the names Loki and Anansi, is a reference to the work of Neil Gaiman, the novelist and graphic novel author of which Eric Kripke has admitted being a fan. Gaiman frequently uses Tricksters in his fiction, and his recent novel was concerned primarily with Anansi.

The name "Starla" for the blonde barfly (in Sam's version of events) is a possible reference to The Simpsons, which featured a trashy, bleached-blonde barfly of that name (her most famous line is, "Can I have the keys to the car, lover? I feel like changing wigs.").

The band Junk Food won a CW competition on MySpace to have their song "Next To You" included in the show. It plays while Sam and Dean are in the bar.

The boys relating their mutually contradictory accounts of events shown in flashback to Bobby, who then determines the truth, is a take on the 1950 movie Rashomon, in which four people tell mutually contradictory versions of events shown in flashback and the final account is assumed to be the truth. The method was also used in an X-Files episode, "Bad Blood", on which John Shiban (the writer of this episode) was a co-producer.

The boys are staying in a hotel called "Kings Lair" in room 12.

A purple nurple is an actual drink containing coconut rum, triple sec, blue curacao and cranberry juice.

The laptop is confirmed as being Sam's.

The Trickster states that he's met hunters before.

The show was actually advertised in the Weekly World News, via an interview with Dean and Sam in two issues of the paper. Weekly World News is a tabloid paper best known for its stories involving alien abductions, strange mutations and Elvis sightings.

Dean reads the Weekly World News.

Dean: That's where the frat boy had his close encounter.

A close encounter is an event in which a person witnesses a UFO. This could also be a reference Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another Spielberg movie about aliens who come to Earth.

The Trickster reads a Weekly World News about a cannibal wielding a chainsaw, and later creates this cannibal to fight Sam, Dean, and Bobby. This could be a reference to Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, except the cannibal shown in the WWN is said to have killed his family, where Leatherface and his family are cannibals working together.

Minutiae

While masquerading as electricians, the brothers wear work jackets with patches saying "Ohio Connect DSL".

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 2.15 Tall Tales (transcript)

Promotion

• Episode Stills
• Episode Promo: 2.15 Tall Tales
• This episode was promoted prior to its airing in the Weekly World News itself, which ran an interview with Sam and Dean (as in, the characters themselves). You can read the article here.