Supernatural: Route 666

Story:

A racist ghost truck starts killing black people in a small town and Dean’s old girlfriend calls the Winchesters in to help. While Sam gets annoying about Dean telling people the family secret.

Thoughts:

A man driving down route 666 gets attacked by a massive truck while the radio goes on and off so you know it’s something supernatural. He eventually gets driven off the road and the truck fades to nothing.
An old friend calls Dean. Her dad’s dead and she thinks it might be his sort of thing. Dean dated her for a while. Sam thinks it’s just a car accident and asks about how she knows about them. Dean admits he’s told her and it annoys Sam because he never told Jess.
They get to the town and find out that two black people have been killed on this stretch of road.
Both cars have a dent in them like something hit them but the police say it was just an accident because there are no other tire tracks.
Now jimmy’s died Cassie wants the road to be closed but it’s a main road in and out of town and the mayor refuses. She wonders if he’d closed the road if the victim’s were white. He says he’s the last person to be racist and she should ask her mother.
The Brothers ask some guys if Jimmy saw a truck like Cassie’s father did. The white guy knows nothing but the black guy says back in the 70’s there was a string of deaths of black people. They disappeared in a big black truck and the police didn’t care.
They brainstorm what could be going on. They reference the flying Dutchman where the ship is part of the captain. So the truck and driver had something to do with Cassie’s family.
Sam wants to know more about Dean’s relationship with Cassie. They were more involved than he said. He was in love and she dumped him.
Jimmy was the first black reporter to become an editor. She asked her mom about what the mayor said but she didn’t want to talk about it.
Dean and Cassie argue and start making out. It’s all very predictable. Then they have sex while an awful song plays about being in paradise.
The truck appears to the mayor. He runs but it kills him.
Dean and Cassie lay in bed and discuss their relationship until Sam calls.
Dean meets him where the mayor died. The cops are stumped and it looks like he was run over but there are no tire tracks again. The mayor had just bought the property.
Later Dean and Cassie do some research. The mayor bulldozed the house and the first killing happened the day after.
Cassie’s at home alone and the lights flicker because the truck is outside. She closes the windows and it opens the shutters. What does she think windows are going to do against a ghost truck? And the truck either has a sense of humour or is offended by her closing tHe windows. She calls Dean. This scene isn’t scary. I don’t care if it’s a ghost truck how’s it going to kill her if she’s in the house and it sticks to roads.
Dean gets to the house and she says no one was driving the truck and then it was gone. Cyrus Dorian owned the truck and he died 40 years ago. Cassie’s mum dated Cyrus for a while then dated Martin in secret. Cyrus found out and got angry. They decided to elope. On the date set for the wedding the church got burned down while a children’s choir was practising. Cyrus attacked Martin with a bat but Martin got the upper hand and killed him. Then the other two helped him get rid of the body. They put it in the truck and rolled it into the swamp.
The mayor found out but did nothing because he knew what Cyrus did.
Sam misses having conversations that don’t start with ‘this killer truck’. Stop complaining this is what makes you interesting.
Destruction of Cyrus’s house activated the spirit so they’ve got to destroy the truck.
They get a tractor to pull the truck out and then they burn the body. The truck turns up while they’re doing this and they’re surprised.
Dean gets in his car and leads the truck away while Sam has to burn the body. He phones Cassie and asks where the burned down church is. Then he phones Dean and directs him to the spot.
Dean sits in the car as the truck drives at him. It disappears as it should have hit him. He’s where the church burned down and when spirits cross hallowed ground they get destroyed. So Sam thought it might work.
Dean and Cassie say goodbye. It’s very boring.
Sam asks Dean if he ever thinks about putting what they do on hold to be with someone. Dean takes a nap instead of answering him.
I found this episode boring and I couldn’t really take the killer truck seriously. The relationship stuff dragged the episode down.
The good thing is they actually have black people in the story about racism and not use metaphors to represent them. It’s bad when explicit representation is progress.
The only thing I’m going to say is that all the patting on the back that happens when we look at how racist the past was then completely ignore how racist things still are. Especially when your TV show doesn’t have any recurring black characters and won’t have in the future either (I think there might have been a black angel at some point that lasted a little while but I’m not sure). Maybe you shouldn’t be pretending the present is perfect and highlight some of the problems that still exist. I don’t like glossing over things. I’m not black but I know how I feel about LGBTQ representation.
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