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'''[[Recap/{{Supernatural}} Recap]] of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'''''\\
'''Season 6, Episode 9'''

!Clap Your Hands If You Believe...

->'''Sam:''' Close encounter? What kind? First? Second?
->'''Dean:''' They're after me!
->'''Sam:''' Third kind already? You better run, man. I think the fourth kind's a butt thing.
->'''Dean:''' Empathy, Sam! Empathy!

Written by Ben Edlund.

Directed by John Showalter.

Air Date: November 19, 2010.

Sam and Dean investigate a series of disappearances that seem to involve [=UFO=]s.

!!Body Count:

For this episode = 1 fairy and 1 human.

For the series so far = At least 432 humans (of which 6 were witches), 74 demons, 33 ghosts, 26 vampires, 19 zombies, 14 gods, 11 angels, 9 hellhounds, 7 skinwalkers, 6 changelings, 4 shapeshifters, 3 djinn, 2 ghouls, 2 werewolves, 2 dogs, 1 crocotta, 1 fairy, 1 lamia, 1 okami, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 reaper, 1 rugaru, 1 shtriga, 1 siren, 1 wendigo, 1 whore of Babylon, and 1 wraith.

!Tropes

* AlienFairFolk: The plot twist in a nutshell.
* AnalProbing: Dean is on his cell phone with Sam when what appears to be a UFO's search light starts chasing him. Figuring Dean is having a close encounter of the third kind, Sam advises, "Third kind already? You better run, man. I think the fourth kind is the butt thing."
** Later, there's a mention of firstborn sons servicing Oberon. Sam asks if Dean "[[DoubleStandardRapeSciFi serviced]]" the fairy king.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: No aliens, which is a minor ContinuityNod to [[Recap/SupernaturalS02E15TallTales "Tall Tales" (S02, E15)]].
* BeneathNotice: The leprechaun seems to suggest this is how they could get Sam's soul from the Cage, saying he and his people "have a way of getting in back doors."
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Notably averted, despite the title.
* ComedicSociopathy: Plenty of this from Sam.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Marion comes across as your average overly-cheerful hippie, but she's clearly an expert on fairies, and everything she presents as fact is true. Of course, she doesn't seem to appreciate how dangerous they are.
* TheConscience[=/=]MoralityChain: Dean for Sam, even giving a ShoutOut to Jiminy Cricket from ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}''.
-->"Empathy, Sam!"
* ContinuityNod: The opening, which is also a ShoutOut to ''Series/TheXFiles'', was put together from clips of previous episodes, including the slow-dancing alien from [[Recap/SupernaturalS02E15TallTales the first Trickster episode]].
* CreditsGag: The credits are a ShoutOut to ''Series/TheXFiles''.
* CropCircles: Serves as the WhamShot at the start of the episode. And Dean is abducted while inspecting a crop circle left at one of the previous abduction sites.
* DissonantSerenity: Sam. Soon after Dean is abducted, he's "had time to adjust".
-->'''Sparrow:''' Did it happen when you were kids?
-->'''Sam:''' No, like, half an hour ago.
* DistractedByTheSexy: Sam, notably. Usually that's Dean's job.
** Lest you think he's losing his touch, Dean is also riveted by [[spoiler: Tinkerbell]]'s nipples.
* DrunkOnMilk: The watchmaker says that cream is like tequila for fairies. The little folk are shown passed out or staggering around.
* EyeOpen: At the end of the opening credits as a ShoutOut to ''Series/TheXFiles''.
* TheFairFolk: The Tinkerbell-esque fairy and [[spoiler:watchmaker's elves]] look like they're straight out of a live-action Disney movie, but the leprechaun and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcap redcap]] (a type of fae that murders travelers and stains his hat with their blood) are much larger and much nastier.
* HollywoodProvincialism: The man Dean tackles is stated to be the District Attorney. The closest thing that Tipton, Indiana (where the episode takes place) has is a Prosecuting Attorney.
* MagicallyBindingContract
* MicrowaveMisuse: Contains a scene paralleling the ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' where Dean traps and cooks an attacking fairy in the microwave. The remains are gone before he can show Sam.
** Actually, they're not gone. Sam just can't see them, or fairies in general, because only someone who's been taken to the fairy realm or made a contract with them can see them. From Dean's point of view, the inside of the microwave is a bloody mess.
* [[MistakenForRacist Mistaken for Homophobe]]: Dean what did you think would happen if you attacked a man in the street shouting "Fairy!"?
** [[MistakenForRacist Mistaken for Ableist]]: Made worse by the fact that he said "tiny fairy" and the man in question was a little person.
** In a meta example, the Twitter hashtag for the episode was #[=FightTheFairies=], taken from what Dean says while he's getting arrested for the above-mentioned attack, which caused quite a few fans to be [[MistakenForRacist Mistaken for Homophobe]].
* MissingTime: Dean is annoyed when he returns to find Sam in bed with the GirlOfTheWeek instead of searching for his missing brother. Sam informs Dean he's been gone all night, not just for an hour as he thinks.
* MyCard: "All right. Listen. Call us if anything comes to mind."
* ObsessivelyOrganized: Fairies must count all the grains in any pile of salt they encounter. Definitely qualifies as a WeaksauceWeakness.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Creator/MishaCollins as Castiel. He doesn't appear this episode.
* SpecialEditionTitle: It's an ''X-Files'' shout-out.
* TheWatchmaker: Mr. Brennan.
* ThrowItIn: Jared and Jensen had fun with this episode. Jared ad-libbed the lines "Do you have bigger cups?" and "Why didn't I do that earlier?"[[note]]Nicely lampshading the fact that he could have completely avoided the fight with the leprechaun if he'd just dumped the salt in the first place[[/note]], while Jensen ad-libbed "I'm just kidding".
* TractorBeam: Spotlight in the cornfield.
* {{Ultraterrestrials}}: Sam uses this very term to describe the fairies, but since they come from another dimension it's unclear whether or not they count.
* VoxPops: Start of the episode.