Supernatural: Season 11, Episode 19 – “The Chitters”

At the conclusion of the last episode of Supernatural, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester unsuccessfully attempted to both exorcise Lucifer out of Castiel (Misha Collins) and kill Amara (Emily Swallow), only to see her abduct Castiel/Lucifer, whom she referred to as “God’s favorite son”.

All of this had little to do with this week’s stand-alone episode, as the show yet again escaped from its ever-increasingly complicated main plot to focus on a new monster-of-the-week.

After revealing that Castiel/Lucifer has been missing for more than a week, Sam distracts Dean with the details of a potential case: a girl reportedly abducted by a “green-eyed mutant creature”. Upon arriving in a small town in Colorado, the local sheriff (Kandyse McClure) reveals that six people have gone missing in the past few days, repeating a strange spike in disappearances that occurs in the area every 27 years.

The Winchesters, however, find less-than-reliable witnesses spouting ever-increasingly ridiculous scenarios: a pothead who claims that her friend was taken by a flying, hairless creature with gender-free anatomy, and a local woman (April Telek) who believes that her husband and the rest of the town are afflicted by what her grandmother called “the chitters”: an orgy-causing epidemic tied to the spring equinox. After a girl reports that she and her friend were attacked by a buzzing horde of green-eyed people at a skate park, Sam and Dean split up to investigate.

Dean finds out that all of the town’s crazy rumors are true, and nearly becomes a victim himself. Fortunately, he’s saved by two hunters, Jessy (Lee Rumohr) and Cesar (Hugo Ateo). Despite being a married couple, they’ve quite a few things in common with the Winchesters, particularly Jessy, who only got into the business of “saving people, hunting things” to avenge the mysterious disappearance of his brother during the last epidemic 27 years ago.

Drawing further parallels between Sam and Dean, Jessy and Cesar also disagree on how to attack this week’s monsters of the week (bissan: cicada-like spirits who possess humans in order to reproduce), so Dean and Cesar look for a burrow in the woods, while Sam and Jessy investigate the town’s currently missing former sheriff (Robert Zen Humpage).

Dean and Cesar quickly find and destroy the bissan, but more emotional heft is given to Jessy’s confrontation with Sheriff Cochran. Twenty-seven years ago, he refused to admit Jessy was right about the bissan, and failed to prevent it from happening again because he felt guilty about having to kill his own chitter-afflicted daughter. Jessy does finally get closure, however, as he finds his brother’s body and is able to give him a proper hunter’s pyre burial.

In what is an unusually happy ending for two Supernatural characters, Jessy and Cesar decide to retire and raise horses in New Mexico. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if we see these two hunt again someday.