Bloody Mary - Recap

Toledo, Ohio
Three 10-year-old girls are playing “Truth or Dare” at the home of one of them, Lily Shoemaker. One girl dares Lily to enter the bathroom and utter “Bloody Mary” three times before the mirror. Legend says this will summon Bloody Mary, variously a ghost, witch, or wronged woman, who will scratch out the eyes of whoever summoned her. Lily takes the dare and says “Bloody Mary” twice. A wind starts to pick up out of nowhere. At the end of the third recitation, her friends hammer on the door, scaring her. However, Lily emerges unharmed. The noise rouses the girl’s father, Steven Shoemaker, who asks them to keep the noise down. He returns to his room, passing several reflective surfaces. Each one reflects a darkly shrouded girl, her face obscured by her hair. Steve goes to the bathroom and takes some medicine, and then stares in surprise at his reflection as veins spread across the right side of his face.



Downstairs, Lily’s older sister Donna comes home late. She goes upstairs and sees a puddle of blood seeping beneath the bathroom door. She opens the door and screams at what is inside.

Sam is having another nightmare about the death of Jessica, his college girlfriend. Dean rouses him as the pair arrives in Toledo. Sam refuses to discuss his nightmare, and Dean says that sometimes they’re going to have to talk. They’ve read about Steven’s mysterious death and have come to the morgue to investigate. They attempt to convince the attendant that they’re students who have arranged to see Shoemaker’s body as part of a college project. When Dean can’t fast-talk him, Sam offers him a bribe using Dean’s poker winning, and the coroner lets them examine the corpse. He explains that Steven’s eyes exploded in his head, and the official cause of death is a massive cerebrovascular accident-- a stroke.

Afterward, the brothers figure it must be a supernatural occurrence. They go to talk to Donna at the funeral reception and claim they worked with her dad. They offer their condolences to Donna, who is with her two friends, Charlie and Jill. Lily overhears them and says it’s her fault because she tried to summon Bloody Mary, who scratches her victims’ eyes out. Dean points out that her dad didn’t say it, so she isn’t to blame.

The brothers slip upstairs to check out the bathroom, and they discuss how Steven died when Lily invoked the spirit. Donna’s friend Charlie confronts them. She knows Steven was a day trader and had no co-workers, and demands the truth. They tell her an approximation of the truth and insist that they don’t want anyone else hurt, and leave her with the impression that they’re cops. Sam gives Charlie their number to call in case she or any of her friends notice anything unusual. They then go to the local library to research the source of the Bloody Mary story. When they discover the computers are down, they prepare for a long search.



Later, Charlie calls Jill to tell her about the brothers. Charlie shares Lily’s idea about Bloody Mary, but Jill doesn’t take it seriously. She tells Charlie that she’s going to the phone and uttering “Bloody Mary” three times before her bathroom mirror. Jill screams over the phone, but she’s just pretending to annoy Charlie. After she hangs up, Jill gets ready for bed, unaware that Bloody Mary has started appearing in all of the reflections. When Jill finally looks in the mirror, she discovers that her reflection has taken on a life of its own. Its eyes start bleeding, and it accuses Jill of killing a boy. Jill’s eyes start bleeding and she collapses, dead.



At their motel, Sam wakes up from another nightmare of Jessica accusing him of her death. The Winchesters’ research hasn’t turned up anything on women named Mary dying in front of mirrors. There are also no records of strange deaths. However, Charlie calls to arrange a meeting in the ark, and tells them how Jill died. She wonders if she’s going insane, but the brothers assures her that she isn’t insane and they need her help. They have Charlie sneak them into Jill’s bedroom so they can investigate the second death scene. Sam finds some organic traces on the mirror, and they use ultraviolet light to find a handprint and the name “Gary Bryman.” Sam checks the name and discovers that Gary was an eight-year-old boy who died two years ago, the victim of a vehicular manslaughter committed by someone driving a black Toyota Camry. The driver was never found, but Charlie tells them that Jill drove a black Camry.



Dean and Sam go back to the Shoemaker home and check the mirror with ultraviolet, and find a hand print and the name “Linda Shoemaker.” Linda is Steven’s wife, and Donna explains that her mother accidentally died of a sleeping pill overdose. She angrily tells them to leave, and Charlie wonders if Steven could have killed Linda. Charlie decides to stay around and protect her friend.

Dean expands the search nationwide, looking for other deaths where someone had a nasty secret. He comes up with the unsolved murder of Mary Worthington, age 19 and living alone in Fort Worth, IN. The brothers drive there and talk to the retired police detective who handled Mary’s case. He explains that her eyes were removed with surgical precision. Before she died, she used her own blood to write was “TRE” on her mirror. The detective tells them that he suspected the killer was a surgeon named Trevor Sampson. He knew Mary had a boyfriend whom she referred to as “T,” and that the last entry in her diary revealed that she was planning to tell T’s wife about their affair. The detective concludes that she spent her last living moments trying to expose her killer’s identity, and Sampson died years ago. The brothers ask where she was buried, and the detective says that she was cremated. However, the Mary that she wrote on was returned to the Worthington family after the case was closed.



At school, Charlie tells Donna about Bloody Mary. Like Jill before her, Donna doesn’t take the legend seriously and mocks Charlie by uttering Mary’s name three times before a mirror. Charlie goes to chemistry class, and sees Bloody Mary in the mirror of her compact, then in another mirror, and even in the reflected glasses of the teacher. Insane with terror, she flees the school.



As they drive back to Toledo, Sam talks to Mary’s brother and confirms that he sold it a week ago to an antique store in Toledo. They figure that’s why Mary is now active in Toledo, and they need to find it and smash it. Charlie calls and tells them what happened. At her home, the brothers cover all the reflective surfaces in her bedroom to protect her from Mary, and tell her not to look into any reflective surfaces. They then ask her whose death she is secretly responsible for her, and Charlie reluctantly tells them that she dumped a boy after a fight. He threatened to kill himself if she didn’t take him back, and she told him to go ahead. When he did, she blamed herself.

The brothers drive to the antique store, while figuring that the ghost blames Charlie even though the girl isn’t really responsible for her ex-boyfriend’s suicide. Sam suggests that they summon Mary to a specific mirror and trap her. He offers to do it, and Dean pulls the Impala over and says that he figures Sam believes he killed Jessica. Dean tells his brother that he has to stop blaming himself, and that he knows Sam’s “secret.” Sam says that he doesn’t know everything, and refuses to tell him the rest. Dean still doesn’t like it, but Sam says that Charlie and many more will die if he doesn’t summon Mary.



The brothers break into the antique store after hours and discover it’s filled with mirror. They eventually find the Worthington mirror, but are unaware that they’ve set off a hidden alarm. Sam says “Bloody Mary” three times, but before anything can happen, the police pull up outside. Dean goes to delay them, while Sam watches him... unaware that Mary is in the reflection behind him.



Out front, Dean claims that he’s the boss’ kid, but the officers note that the owner is Japanese.

Inside, Sam realizes that Mary is in the nearby mirrors and smashes them. He dares her to appear in the Worthington mirror, and his reflection’s eyes start to bleed. It accuses Sam of killing Jessica, while Sam’s eyes bleed and he clutches at his chest in agony.

When Dean is unable to convince the officers that he’s adopted, he knocks them down and goes inside.

Mary, as Sam’s reflection, says that he had nightmares of Jessica dying before it happened, but he never warned her because he wanted to be normal. As Sam lies dying, Dean runs in and breaks the Worthington mirror. As he starts to get Sam out, Bloody Mary crawls out of the mirror frame and advances on the brothers. Their eyes bleed and they collapse in pain, but Dean manages to grab another mirror. Her own power rebounds as her reflection accuses her of her own murders. The spirit’s eyes bleed and then she collapses into a pile of glass shards.



Later, Dean and Sam drop Charlie off at her home and tell her that it’s over. She thanks them, and Sam tells her that she should forgive herself because she didn’t cause her ex-boyfriend’s death. As Charlie walks away, Dean tells him to take his own advice. Dean asks what Sam’s secret was, but Sam says that there are still things he has to keep secret. As they drive through town, Sam sees a ghostly Jessica. She says nothing and vanishes as they pass.

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