Chpt3 Episode 5: “What Is and What It Should Never Be”

Chpt3 Episode 3: “Simon Said” is an episode in the series Power Rangers: Omniverse.

Plot
Hunter is driving alone, on the phone with Kurt (while at Bobby’s). Kurt peers out through the curtains nervously, telling Hunter that there is a cop out front talking with Bobby. Hunter reassures Kurt that there's "nothing to worry about" since they ditched the Impala's license plates and all of the fake credit cards. Kurt's not so sure the life of a fugitive is what he'd had in mind, but shifts to the current hunt asking Hunter if he's found anything.

Dean scoffs, saying that finding the Trickster’s master and getting rid of it should kill all existing tricksters. As a way of getting back on the trickster they encountered from before. Kurt wanders back to a large stack of books and tells Hunter that he's figured out that they're hunting a monster called a “djinn”. Hunter's wry grin echoes through his voice as he asks Kurt if he thinks the "freakin' genie" can actually grant wishes. Hunter muses about Jeannie (as in I Dream of…) being hotter than Samantha (from Bewitched). Trying to keep Hunter focused, Kurt tells him that djinns lay in dormant locations such as caves, abandoned buildings and such. And had usually taken many forms of certain deities that grant wishes throughout all of mythology but original there’s only one. And that they have had servants which were the “tricksters” that lures victims them to their master djinn and have them grant any wish. But in truth, djinns feed on the victims slowly as they become immobilized and dream about their fantasy that they’ve wished.

Then suddenly Hunter loses contact on Kurt then his car suddenly dies leaving Hunter stranded on the side of the road. Hunter pulls out a flashlight and checks the hood of his car to try to get it back running. He then turns suddenly as if he heard someone or something behind him. Nothing. As he continues to fix the car. Just then, Hunter is grabbed underneath what reveals to be a djinn. As Hunter struggles against the djinn's grip, the djinn raises its palm, electric blue light bouncing and crackling along its palm and fingers. It presses its hand on Dean's forehead and asks him “what do you wish for?”. Hunter gasping as his eyes roll up.

He then wakes up next to a beautiful girl, and wanders around an unfamiliar apartment he’s in. No longer wearing a Ranger morpher, he discovers he is in Lawrence, Kansas then drives to his childhood home to find his mother alive. Hunter's face is a display of shock, hurt, and hope. He says "Mom" and she asks him if he's okay. With a very honest "I don't know", she then invites him inside. She walks into the living room, saying that Carmen called, worried because he had just run out of their apartment. Hunter, being Hunter, asks his mom to prove she is who he hopes she is by asking what she told him before she put him to bed when he was a kid. With a small smile, she replies that she told him angels were watching over him, passing the test. Hunter gathers her up in a hug and almost gleefully roams the room looking at the pictures. He discovers that not only had his dad once belonged to a softball team, but that he'd died in his sleep of a stroke earlier that year. The past being changed – there was no demon attack and no house fire.

He goes outside to get some air and looks in the Impala's trunk, which is empty except for a few trivial bits and pieces, and murmurs a bemused "who'd have thought it, baby, we're civilians" before shutting the trunk and catching sight of a decidedly out-of-place young girl in a white dress. He starts to cross to her and nearly gets nearly hit by a red car, breaking his focus on the girl. When he looks back up, she's gone.

Hunter is back in the house and is happily inhaling what he declares to be the "best sandwich ever" and talking to his mom, who, for her part, is wondering why he wasn't at work… at the garage. Covering easily, Dean says he had the day off. Later the falling afternoon, Hunter sits on the front steps relaxing with a beer just then a car pull up on their driveway. Revealing to be Hunter’s younger brother grown and having similar looks to Kurt along with his girlfriend. Hunter can’t believe what he sees, he runs up to greet them. He wraps his brother a fierce hug until he gasps that he can't breathe. Hunter is overjoyed to seeing him for the first time. His brother, Sam, speculates that Hunter's been drinking (and this time, it's hard to deny as he has beer in hand), and Hunter is puzzled by Sam's apparent stand-off-ish-ness. He wonders why they are there, and Sam asks with obvious exasperation born of several years of dealing with a wayward brother if Hunter has forgotten their mom's birthday.

That night at dinner in a restaurant, Sam and his girlfriend announce their engagement, Everyone congratulates them, and Hunter's smile is genuine as he tells Sam he is "really glad he's happy". His joy is short-lived, however when he catches sight of the girl in white that he'd seen on campus. He pushes past Sam and crosses the restaurant, but by the time he gets to her, she's gone. He's left with his whole family staring at him confusedly.

At home, Hunter is keen to go out and spend time with his girlfriend, Carmen, and Sam and his girlfriend. Sam confronts Hunter over his behavior – that he and Hunter are not close, and he doesn’t understand Hunter’s friendly demeanor. Back at his apartment, Hunter starts enjoying his life with Carmen. However, later that night he sees a news broadcast that leads him to discover that all the people he and Kurt had saved are now dead. The ghostly woman appears to him again, and Hunter sees images of dead people in his closet. Distraught, Hunter visits his dad’s grave. Hunter stands staring down at his father's tombstone. He's working to keep the tears at bay, but too much has happened. His throat working convulsively, he begins speaking: “All of them... everyone that you saved, everyone Kurt and I saved… they’re all dead. And there’s this woman that’s haunting me. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the connection is… not yet, anyway. It’s like my old life is coming after me or something, like it doesn’t want me to be happy. Of course, I know what you’d say. Well, not the you that played softball, but you’d say, Go hunt the djinn. It put you here. It can put you back. Your happiness or all those people’s lives... no contest. Right? But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? What? Mom’s not supposed to live her life? Sammy’s not supposed to live on and get married? "Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad?"

Wiping the tears from his face, Dean swallows, nods, and turns to walk out of the cemetery.

Hunter is then seen breaking into his brother’s house and is caught by Sam as he breaks into his kitchen to steal a silver knife. Claiming all his and their mom’s silverware doesn’t carry anything pure silver. Sam asks what it’s for then Hunter pretends that he needs it to pay a gambling debt. Sam insists on accompanying Hunter.

Hours later it’s midnight, Sam is sleeping and jerks awake when Hunter stops the Impala in front of the djinn's lair. He demands to know where they are and Hunter quips that they're not in Kansas anymore. Pointing out that it’s the only abandoned warehouse nearby the location he encountered the djinn. Sam follows his brother through the abandoned warehouse, trekking nearly the same path that Hunter followed earlier. Hunter has the silver knife and is on high alert. The boys turn a corner off the corridor in which Hunter finds two dangling skeletons. As they stare in horror, Hunter sees the empty hospital blood bag still hooked up to the neck of one of the skeletons. Next Sam sees the girl in white that Hunter's been seeing all around town. She moans and asks in a weak voice for her father. Before he can do anything, though, the djinn appears.

The djinn uses its electric blue light of wish-granting and sleep on the girl, subduing her, then drinks some of the blood from the bag attached to her jugular. Hunter has managed to get Sam behind some stairs, but when Sam sees this, he is unable to keep his gasp silent. The djinn turns at the sound, and approaches, but Hunter gets them out of danger. The djinn leaves, and Hunter approaches the girl, realizing that she hadn't known where she was – she thought she was with her father.

Sam is practically begging that they leave, but Hunter is starting to get it. He's slammed by a disorienting, dizzying flash of himself, hanging in that very room by his wrists, pale, dying, with his blood being slowly drained from him to provide sustenance to the djinn. Sam, frantic now, promises Hunter that he believes – he will believe anything if they can just go. But Dean knows he's not going…

Lifting the knife, he scares his already terrified brother further by raising it toward his own chest declaring "die in your dreams, you wake up, right?" Sam bellows "Wait!" but his plea is ineffectual. Hunter is prepared to plunge the knife forward when Mary's voice stops him. Trembling, Dean looks slowly to the side and sees his mother walking toward him. "Why'd you have to keep digging?" Sam asks, a bit sorrowfully, and no longer freaked out. Hunter's eyes shoot to him, not in shock, more in disappointed realization. Carmen steps up behind Sam. "Why couldn't you have left well enough alone?" Sam continues. "You were happy". Hunter counters that none of it was real, but he is slowly buffeted by Carmen ("We could have a family of our own..."), and his mom ("Get some rest. You don’t have to keep fighting anymore").

Hunter knows that if he chooses to stay, to live inside this happiness, he'll be dead in a matter of hours, even though it will feel like years to him. Listening to them, wanting the rest, wanting the happiness, but knowing that he had to do what is right, Hunter looks directly at Sam, whispers, "I'm sorry," and plunges the knife into his chest.

Back in reality and in the djinn’s lair. "HUNTER!" Kurt yells. As he sees his brother hanging, pale and still, by his wrists. He tries to undo Hunter from being hanged. Repeatedly begging Hunter to wake up, Kurt is finally able to rouse him who bleats a weak "Auntie Em" followed by "there's no place like home." Kurt carefully removes the needle from his neck confessing that he thought he'd lost him there for a sec. Hunter replies "You almost did."

Kurt begins to remove the rest of the needles on Hunter just then Hunter catches sight of the djinn walking towards Kurt from behind. Calling out a warning, Hunter begins to haul on his still-bound wrists while Kurt struggles with the djinn, getting knocked around in the process. Kurt is pinned to the wall with the djinn's electric blue hand of wish fulfillment above his forehead and asks: “what do you wish for?”. Just then the djinn suddenly arches back in pain and shock. Kurt darts his eyes over to see Hunter standing behind the djinn, twisting the knife on it’s skull from behind to finish the job. With a non-verbal check to make sure they were each okay, they head back to the girl in white, whereHunter discovers that she is still alive and whispers for Kurt's help to cut her down. Catching the girl in his trembling arms, Hunter whispers to her that they are going to get her out of there, get her safe.

A day later, Kurt is on the phone with the hospital and turns to Hunter to assure him that the girl they rescued is going to be okay. Kurt sits on a chair and asks gently if Hunter's okay. Hunter recounts briefly what he'd seen, what he'd wished for, but what he hadn't had. He had his mom and little brother alive, but he had never become a Ranger and how he and his brother weren’t really close with one another. Kurt watches Hunter closely and says, "well, I’m glad we are. And I’m glad you got yourself out of that reality, Hunter. Most people wouldn’t have had the strength. They would’ve just stayed". Hunter's unconvinced of the wisdom of his actions. "Yeah, lucky me”. He stands and walks across the room to lean on a dresser and looks back at Kurt. Kurt argues that it wasn't real. "I know," Hunter says before confessing, "But I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since my dad… all I can think about is how much this job’s cost us. We’ve lost so much. And we’ve sacrificed so much." The raw emotion and utter heartbreak on Hunter's face is too much for Kurt who argues, "But people are alive because of you and me. It’s worth it, Hunter. It is. It’s not fair, and, you know, it hurts like hell, but it’s worth it.”