Do you like Supernatural Then and Now? Well, one of our guests called Denim-wrapped Nightmares their "bratty, little sister." And you know what? Accurate! 🥂
Join SPN family newcomers, Berly and LA, as they recap the Warner Bros. CW TV series, Supernatural, episode by episode. Over drinks, they'll discuss lore, gore, and what they adore about the Winchesters and their adventures.
As a way to keep in touch during the 2020 pandemic, Berly and LA started podcasting with their debut, anything-goes talk show, The Tipsy Exchange. During those discussions, Berly and LA realized that they most enjoy talking humorously about TV/Film, mythology, suspense, and hot guys.
A Supernatural podcast seemed a natural fit. It's a match made in heaven... or hell. You decide!
If you choose to drink, please do so responsibly. CW/TW for violent and lewd commentary; listeners beware! 🔞
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Supernatural Season 2, Episode 9, Croatoan recap 🪾 A town in Oregon goes violently, bloodthirstily crazy, the word CROATOAN is carved into a post, and the mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke comes calling on Denim-wrapped Nightmares, a Supernatural rewatch podcast.
It starts with Sam's vision: Dean shooting an unarmed man in front of a Stepford-smiley town. When the boys roll into River Grove, Oregon, the people are just a little too nice... until they aren't. A blood-borne virus is turning neighbors into rage monsters, the phone lines are down, and the boys are stuck in a clinic with a doctor, a deputy, and a couple of survivors, trying to figure out who's infected before nightfall. Spoiler: it's not looking good.
Episode Highlights:
The slow-mo opening (we were braced for another flashback episode)
The boys introducing themselves with ZZ Top aliases
A neighbor named Mr. Rogers (we miss you, king)
A blood-borne virus that would make 28 Days Later proud
The nurse who goes full spider monkey to climb Sam like a tree
Dean's choice when things get dire (we're not crying, you're crying)
Dean FINALLY about to tell Sam what Dad whispered... cut to credits. (WHY.)
In the lore segment, we dig into the Lost Colony of Roanoke: John White's 1590 return to find his granddaughter Virginia Dare and the entire colony gone, with only CROATOAN carved into a tree. Then we dig into 2022's real-life zombie virus headlines: scientists reviving a virus frozen in the Siberian permafrost for 48,500 years, and whether we should be worried.
Sam: "This is the dumbest thing you've ever done." Dean: "I don't know about that. Remember that waitress in Tampa?"
Your turn, hunters: What do YOU think happened to the Roanoke colonists? And would you have stayed behind like Dean did? Tell us in the Spotify comments, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts (it's how new hunters find us), or send us fan mail. Bonus points for fandom fun facts we missed.
Denim-wrapped Nightmares is a Supernatural rewatch podcast hosted by Berly and LA, breaking down every episode of the Winchester saga with lore deep-dives plus cast and crew interviews. Special thanks to David Fesliyan and Fesliyan Studios.
Subscribe, leave a review, and, if you choose to drink, please drink responsibly.
Join the hunt at linktr.ee/dwnpod where you can find links to socials and sign up for emails. Until next time, cheers!
Berly:
Welcome to denim wrapped nightmares a Supernatural rewatch Podcast where we explore the TV series episode by episode.
LA:
over drinks, we'll discuss the lore of gore and what we adore about the Winchesters and their adventures.
Berly:
I'm burly, and I'm a new fan of the series.
LA:
I'm LA, and I'm here along for the ride. And live la Hello Burley. Our last episode was Crossroads blues. We had a group of people who were really in relation to this bar called Lloyds that was right at the intersection of a crossroads in Mississippi. And it started back in 1930 with Robert Johnson, and he had made a deal with the de Beaune devil, whatever you call it, that he wanted to play guitar, he played the blues, but then anybody that makes a steel has 10 years to enjoy whatever it is they made the deal for. And then the hellhounds come for him. And Sam and Dean, were actually able to save one of the guys before the hellhounds got him. But at what cost, but we don't know because Dean was working with the demon. She was really trying to get him to make it where he sacrificed himself to have daddy back. But yeah, it just kind of cut back to them sealing the deal with a kiss. And we don't really know what that deal was. Yeah,
Berly:
we don't know the terms. Exactly.
LA:
Yeah. For for Oh, good one. But yeah, that's a little a little summary.
Berly:
Well, this episode today, it's called Croatoan. That's episode nine and season two. When the episode first started, it's already happening. The scene is already happening. There's frantic stuff going on. People are upset. People are yelling about whether a man has something inside him. And I'm just thinking, what are they talking about? Turns out they're talking about a virus. Dean just says it doesn't matter. It's in, bang, bang, bang, and shoots this guy.
LA:
A lot of slomo action a
Berly:
lot of slow mo going on. And at first, I thought Fuck me. Of course we have another episode that's going to be present day flashback present a flashback and I'm gonna have to recap it again. Because let me tell you, y'all I struggled big time in the usual suspects. With that back and forth. La had to help me. She had to hold my hand through that recap. Fortunately, it was just another one of Sam's visions. Which I'll admit, I forgot yet again, that he has this psychic ability to have the visions. I was pleasantly surprised when they panned up and Sam's like laying on the floor.
LA:
Yeah. Well, the way they do it. It's like it's so kind of unexpected. So you you kind of think it's the start of the episode like normal. You know, but it's I could see why you could forget.
Berly:
But yeah, I was I was thinking when they panned up and it was just Sammy. Yeah, it's like, Oh, thank god. It's just one of his visions. You turned around and looked at me like what the hell. The Vision took place in river Grove, Oregon. Sam was able to kind of pinpoint it to that because there was a poster on the wall that he recalled from his vision. He and Dean are in the Impala and they are heading that way. Once they get there, they get out of the car and they're walking by a phone pole, a telephone pole, I think Sam happens to notice that the word Croatoan is carved into the light pole. LA is going to cover more about what that means Sam talks about it a little bit has to do with the Roanoke colony and some superstitions around what happened to them yatta yatta yatta, where it really gets kind of questionable as to what the fuck is going on here is that Sam suggests, hey, let's reach out to Bobby or Elon and see if any of them happen to know more lore about Croatoan and all of that. First Dean pulls out his phone, no signal. Then Sam pulls out his phone, no signal. Then they go to a payphone and it's dead. And Dean made a comment of, well, if I was going to massacre an entire town. That's how I'd start. Right? Yeah. Cutting, cutting off communication to the outside world. Yep. In Sam's vision, the guy that Dean pumps full of lead is named Dwayne. So they decide to let's seek out this Dwayne guy. Let's find out what's going on with him. They go to his family's house and teen I would say late teens early 20s guy answers the door. He says you know Dwayne's? Not here? My mom's inside and then the dad comes up and is acting really awkward and says Oh no mom went to go get groceries, the whole thing that way, they're smiling and everything is just very
LA:
shady. Yeah, it's off.
Berly:
I think that Dean said it seemed Stepford to him. Yeah. Just very smiley, very nice and yet also very clear, they did not want you to come inside. Yeah. Sam and Dean go around the building, go around the house, and they're looking in the window. And it turns out Mama is there. So that's why they had conflicting information there. But she's tied up. Yeah, in the kitchen. I can't remember if it was the dad or the kid who cut their hand. The dad cut the kid's arm, cut the kid's arm. Okay, that's what it was to drip blood on to an open wound of the mom
LA:
down her shoulder. It was weird. It was very weird. I was very confused.
Berly:
Sam and Dean kick in the door. Shoot the dad. The brother escapes through a window. Sam has a clear shot where they could have taken out the kid. But he doesn't. He hesitates and the kid gets away. Sam and Dean end up picking up the mom and taking her to the medical center. And this is a small town. So the medical center is like a What's the like almost the size of a little store. That's what storefront that's the word I was looking for. It's like a storefront on Main Street is the medical center, small, small town. So they take her there. And they also bring the dad's body with them and say their US Marshals and explained that they just had to save this woman. The woman backs up their story She says that her father, not her father, her husband and her son had attacked her and beat her and tied her up. She has no idea why they were doing this no idea what the motive was. But that they did this and the guys saved her. The doctor runs some tests on the dad's body and finds that his blood looks off just like his personality. She says to say um, if she didn't know better, she would say that there was sulfur in his blood. So Sam, thanks. Oh, demons, we got some sort of demon virus going on up in here. And they figure out because of what the dad and the son were doing is that it's blood to blood contact is how you spread the virus. Dean volunteers Sam used to hear my brother is gonna stay here and help keep you safe. I'm gonna go to the next town and try to get some more help, which I think that the doctor told them the next town was roughly 40 miles away. Yeah, not ridiculously far, but not right next door either. Yeah. Dean gets in the Impala. And as he's trying to leave, he comes across another car that's been stranded in the middle of the road. This car has a massive, like it's not super massive, but a decent sized hole in the windshield. The driver's side window has been shattered out. There's blood everywhere. But there's nobody in it.
LA:
I think it's really kind of it's still smoking or something too, right?
Berly:
I don't remember that. I just remember there being glass everywhere. And Dean finds a knife on the ground next to the driver's side door as well. And he reaches down and picks it up. No glove. There's blood everywhere. You just found out this virus has something to do with blood. And you're picking up stuff near a bunch of blood. Yeah, come on. Do better. Yeah. Dane gets back in the Impala and drives a little bit further down and comes across a blockade of like townspeople with their cars and they've got guns and this is the main street. It's the only way in and out of town. And they've got it completely blocked off. And who's with them? The little brother that Sam let go whenever they were at Dwayne's family's house earlier? Shit. Dean turns around, I was like, Well, fuck me. I guess I'm going back into town. On his way back into town. He runs into Sarge who is an ex Marine, that they actually happened to me earlier Sarge is who kind of pointed them in the right direction to Dwayne's family's house when they first got into town. Right? And I did jot this down that when they meet Sarge, the names they give our guys from the band ZZ Top. Oh, nice. Yay. When I heard I can't remember which name it was. I heard I was like, I know that name. So I googled it really quickly and it ZZ Top. So Sarge helps them find Wayne. Now Sarge sees Dean coming back into town. And he's got his gun out. He's in the middle of the road. Just like it's fuck out of the car. Dane gets out and pulls his gun on Sarge, and they decide to chill out for a second have a conversation. And Sarge explains my neighbor Mr. Rogers. And Tim goes, you have a neighbor named Mr. Rogers. I And Sarge says Well, I did. But apparently everybody's been acting crazy Sarge doesn't have the virus but he's seen everyone around him acting crazy hostile attacking each other, cutting each other. Just yeah. All kinds of nonsense going on up in this little It's not pleasant bill. No it's not all right, it's not pleasant bill up in this bitch Dean and Serge go back to the medical center where Sam is still there with the doctor as well as a nurse who's been there the whole time. She wanted to leave earlier because her boyfriend is out there but they convinced her to stay. Sam refers to John's journal daddy Winchester who happens to have an entry and they're referring to Croatoan as the name of a demon associated with plague and pestilence. So that's where they're starting to think okay, is this some sort of demonic virus demonic germ warfare going on? We know it's a blood trait like blood transfer, not blood transfer. What's like it? It travels through blood? What's the medical word I'm looking for?
LA:
Like, I would say transfusion blood borne.
Berly:
Yes, that just said blood borne virus doesn't sound right. But that's what we're gonna go with today. So they knew that much, but now they're thinking okay, shit. Demon is definitely involved. They were already kind of thinking the demon was involved because Sam's premonitions and visions have almost always had to do with a demon in one way or another. Except for that one premonition where they went home and saw mama for a second. But everything else has had to do with the demons. So they already kind of thought that but now they've gotten confirmation from daddy's journal. While they're at the medical center, who shows up KNOCK KNOCK knocking on the door. Oh, it's Dwayne. He's freaking out. He's seen the town going crazy as well. He has a gash on his leg. And this is who we saw in SAM his vision. Yeah. So it seems like the scene is about to play out just as it did in Sam's vision. Everybody's freaking out. Do you have the virus? There's a cut on your leg did a blood touch you? Is it in you doctor? Do you know? And she's like, I don't know. I can't tell. It's just like, is it in your what's not in me use it and you're not in me. And you're totally expecting Dean to pull up his gun and shoot the guy. But he doesn't
LA:
know. He's he hesitates,
Berly:
he stops himself. Look at that. He was just bitching at Sam. Telling Sammy, you fucked up letting that kid go. What's wrong with you? And Sammy was like I hesitated. It was a kid. Yeah. And now here we have Dean hesitating as well. And it turns out, Dean should have shot that motherfucker. We'll revisit that. As we get to the end of the episode. They're trying to figure out what actions they can take next. Smart Sammy smarty pants figures out that they have everything they need in the medical center in order to build some bombs help grow the arsenal that they already have in the trunk of the Impala in order to escape the town get out, throw some bombs at the blockade and get the fuck out of there. As they're collecting more materials the nurse freakin lock Sam in the closet with all the supplies the supply closet and goes to town being like this is exactly what I was waiting for.
LA:
She was waiting to get him alone and not in the way I would write. She like
Berly:
spider monkey jumps up on him attack some cuts his chest cuts her hand smears her hand on his chest. So now Sammy has been exposed to the virus. Dean is pice. Yeah, he kicks in the door. Puts I think was three shots and this nurse kills her no problem puts her down. Because Fuck you bitch. And now everybody's going oh, Sam has it we have to put him down. And Dean I think he said to them You touch my brother. You'll be dead before you hit the ground. Yeah, this name The name of this show is supernatural. AKA don't fuck with Sammy. 14 is gonna come for your Yeah. So everybody is really concerned about Sam being infected there. Like we know he was we all saw what happened.
LA:
I mean, I would think the same thing. But again, when Dwayne like the the I think the doctor said it took like three hours for the stuff to show up in the bloodwork from the other people
Berly:
in the woman's blood work. Oh, so I forgot to talk about that. So the wife whenever she was with the doctor and Sam, the doctor did test the wife's blood as well. And she wasn't seeing anything in the wife split initially. But then the wife went gangbusters and attacked them. Yeah. And it showed up later. So yeah, you're right. I did forget to bring that up. That was kind of important.
LA:
My point was, I was just gonna say like the same thing with Dwayne. I was like, I would have like, tied him up and waited for three hours. Give him that benefit of the doubt, you know, like, they did. They did well, I know but I'm saying like they could have done the same thing. Were Sam. Okay, I see your point. Yeah. Sarge was like gung ho to shoot them. Yeah. And
Berly:
you are right. They did they tied Dwayne up. They waited for hours. The doctor said, Okay, it's been four hours, no signs of the virus. I'm going to untie him now. Yeah, so to LA's point, they could have done the same with Sam, but I guess it's just because with Dwayne, they didn't see it happen with Dwayne with Sam. They saw it happen to them. There was no question he's been exposed. And then dean major twist. Give Sarge the keys to his Impala. Yeah. And says here, you know, you guys have the explosives you have what you need. Get out of town. Get yourself somewhere safe. I'm not shooting my brother. I'm not leaving my brother. Y'all go. So Sarge, Dwayne and the doctor all leave. Sam is devastated that Dean is doing this. He's begging him to go telling him you know, my fates pretty much sealed. But you could go on and Dean says something along the lines of who says I want to Yeah, I'm tired. I don't want to do this anymore. Well, he certainly doesn't want to do it without them. Right. His whole reason for living just about Yeah, it was really sad. After they chat for a little bit, the doctor comes back and as like a y'all are gonna want to see this. So Sam and Dean both go outside the medical center and everybody's gone. Everyone in the town is just gone ghost town. It's just the five of them. Dwayne Sarge, the Dr. Sam and Dean. That's it. hours later, the doctor announces there's no demon virus in Sam's blood. So they're thinking okay, like maybe you didn't get exposed? Who knows? But then she checks the other blood samples and all of the trace of the demon virus from them is gone as well. The virus has just vanished, which is passed over the town. Really fucking weird. Yeah. As Sam and Dean are leaving, they're both pretty uneasy. Sam is like, how am I immune to this? I know I got exposed, I should have been infected. What's going on? Next we see Dwayne and Sarge in the truck. And Dwayne says, Hey, can you pull over? I need to make a call.
LA:
She should have known.
Berly:
I almost knew right away. I was like, this seems familiar. Like there's, you're in the middle of nowhere. Where are you going to make a call? And Sarge even says like, there's nowhere to make a call. But he pulls over anyways, safety. And Dwayne pulls out the freakin cauldron goblet, whatever that mag had back in season one, and slit sergeants throat, collects blood in it. And he's making a call and he's just like, I don't think any more tests will be necessary. The Winchester boys definitely immune as expected or something like that. And his eyes go black. So Dwayne is possessed. I think it's the same demon that had Meg I think it's the new Meg. But we don't know that for sure. But it just it was very similar to what Meg did in season one. Yeah, exactly the same. And we know that the demon got exercised from Meg and sent back to hell, but that doesn't mean it didn't get sent back up, you know, to go possess somebody else. So who knows? I am disappointed if it is Meg that we aren't getting another sassy bitch. I agree. Like we've got Sam and Dean, right? Yeah, we've got all the all the boys are everywhere. We've got them. We're good. I wanted to sassy bitch back. But we'll give we'll give Dwayne a chance. We'll give Dwayne a chance. We'll see. Next week cut to Sam and Dean who are having a date. next to a river. They're drinking some beers and just chit chatting. Right when it seems like Dean is finally about to say what his dad whispered to us here, all the way back in episode one of this season, it cuts to black and goes to the credit forces. So as far as major takeaway points for this episode, there's a demon virus. Sam is immune. And apparently this is part of yellow eyes plan. So who knows what that's about? Yeah. And Meg is back. She's Dwayne now. I'm still going to call her she and I'm still going to call her Meg because that's who I wish it was. So I'm just going to stick with it. Okay, it's Meg. Meg is back. Sam is immune. yellow eyes lives. The end. No. Other than Sarge getting his throat slit. I wouldn't say there was a whole lot of gore. I mean, there were the cuts with the people trying to share their virus with each other.
LA:
Yes, just a little buddy.
Berly:
I liked this episode. It's not going to be a favorite. It's one of those episodes that by the time we're in season three, I'll probably forget it even existed. You know, like it wasn't very memorable. Yeah, it wasn't bad. It just, yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts on it
LA:
wasn't the best, but I liked it. I like you know, the I liked how they pulled in Roanoke a little bit and zombie virus perhaps of some sort?
Berly:
Well, why don't you go ahead and tell us more about that?
LA:
I sure can. I think probably most people know about Roanoke Island but and August of 1590, John White went back to the Roanoke Island that he had helped build a little community there to get his granddaughter Virginia Dare he had left her there three years prior. But when he got there, it, no one was there. And quite a few people. I mean, it was a little, little bitty town that they had built, and no one was there. And on one of the trees they had carved and CRO for Croatoan. And the city is really down known as Lost Colony. And there's been no explanation really, as to what happened, everybody, there's been a bunch of theories, one being that a virus took out the town. But I mean, I don't know where the graves would be that we have to be like mass graves of some sort. I know. That's about all I want to say. Since I mean, the guys thought with the sulfur in the blood on the show that there might be a demon virus. But we actually do have we don't have deep demon viruses necessarily. But we do have scientists that have found zombie viruses. Scientists have found 13 Unknown pathogens in the thawing permafrost of the Siberian region of Russia.
Berly:
And this is new, like this is recent news.
LA:
Yes, this was from 2022.
Berly:
Yeah, because there's been zombie viruses before. Yeah, this is a new zombie virus,
LA:
one of the viruses they estimated had been stranded under a lake for more than 48,500 years ago. And they say it's, it's really a potential new danger since our planet is warming. And the Arctic regions are melting at quite a quick pace these days, rather than they used to, which means that the zombie viruses can come to the ground, they they don't think there's much risk in them reaching people. But there's a team of French Russian and German researcher, researchers that have a, they've been studying these, they publish their findings in 2015. And it was a fresh set of viruses. And they said that every time that they go in and do this research, they find a new virus. He said, it's a done deal that we know, every time we go looking for virus, infectious viruses in the permafrost, we're gonna find some
Berly:
my dad said a long time ago when I was talking about climate change, and this and that. He said, Well, I mean, you know, what's gonna get us all in the end. And I said, what he said, The viruses, the viruses that are that are coming up that we haven't been exposed to, and we don't, our bodies don't know how to fight off. And then when COVID happened, I was like, it's happening. I'm not lying. I was really scared whenever COVID first happened, I thought, well, yeah, I
LA:
thought it was gonna be the end of the world. I think a lot of people did. A lot of the infectious viruses that they found were only infectious to amoebas.
Berly:
So yeah, we just talked about though, I know. Yeah, they have ectoplasm.
LA:
That, and they and other viruses that are trapped in the permafrost, that have been there for a millennia, could spread to humans and other animals, but a lot of them are only infectious to the bees amoebas that a lot of them that that are finding right now, mostly to the amoebas. But there is the possibility of some that could get us
Berly:
the common Yeah, we're gonna have Croatoan virus,
LA:
maybe, maybe we're all gonna get crazy, violent, most new or ancient viruses are not dangerous. And the ones that survived the deep freeze for 1000s of years tend to be in the category of Corona viruses, and other highly infectious viruses that lead to pandemics. So it's like they're like, it's not likely to get there. But then there are these ones that can get. Yeah,
Berly:
like, it's not likely we don't necessarily did worry about these, but at the same time, we should probably be worried
LA:
about letting you know maybe. They feel that it's pretty that the risk of these viruses being pent up in the Arctic are worth monitoring. They said smallpox has a genetic structure that can hold up under long term freezing and if people stumbled upon the defrosted corpses of a smallpox victim that there is a chance that they could get infected. Some of the samples that they found, were in soil rivers and the Niva targeting viruses were found in the frozen intestinal frozen intestinal remains of a Siberian Wolf from at least 27,000 years ago, down and they actually use the amoebas as virus bait, because they thought it was a good way to search for the viruses without propagating ones that could spread to animals or humans. But they said that didn't really mean that these viruses didn't exist in the frozen tundra, if they didn't fight.
Berly:
So why do they call it a zombie virus? Does it say, oh, it's because it was dead in the ice. And then it came back once it was D thought, I guess thought out, thought out, and now it's alive again. And it may or may not come to us
LA:
via reading. Many virologists say that they're more worried by viruses that are currently circulating like COVID then the risk of the unusual ones that they're finding from the permafrost, they aren't too worried. But then they are kind of worried. It's like, they keep going back and forth this article, so it was just like,
Berly:
they weren't that worried. Yeah, but
LA:
Jenny? Yeah, I missed the probably not gonna happen. But it may.
Berly:
Like it's just affecting the amoebas. Like, they could move they got the ectoplasm they could come in fact, you maybe? We don't know.
LA:
So like, just stay out of the Russian permafrost, like the Arctic. Just don't go there or interact with anybody that's been there. So easy, easy peasy.
Berly:
No problem.
LA:
Yeah. So yeah, there you go. So let me know about it. Worry about it. But then don't worry about it.
Berly:
We don't know what it would do to you. Croatoan. Good night. Yeah. It's terrible. That was the weirdest floor we've covered thus
LA:
far. And I have to redo that. Do you want to know right now. To close it out. We've got a quote between Sam and Dean. Sam says this is the dumbest thing you've ever done.
Berly:
And Dean says, I don't know about that. Remember that waitress in Tampa?
LA:
Sure.
Berly:
Thank you for listening to denim wrapped nightmares.
LA:
Follow us on Twitter or Instagram. leave a review and let us know how we can get involved in the fandom.
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