Sam and Andi continued to pretend to be “just friends” in Reaper episode 7. They’re probably gonna make him wait all season before he gets the girl.

Gladys comes to The Work Bench. Sock’s got questions and is “almost certainly going to do something stupid.” She’s less happy to see him than he is to see her. In the back of her car is what appears to be a body bag. She goes to run him over, he jumps out of the way… and gets hit by someone else not even trying to hit him.

Sam gets the dog of the month award from Ted, meaning he’s shown an utter lack of everything. Sock’s offended because he wanted to be dog of the month again. But Sam is the Devil’s employee of the month. He gets a watch as a reward. What’s the catch? He also gives him the case file for the next escaped soul, Curtis Dean Mays, a multiple murderer. Now Sam’s wondering what the catch is, too. He does stick him with getting the bill, but there’s gotta be more evil afoot than that.

Sock and Ben spy on Gladys’ shopping history and find out she’s been buying some rat poisoning. Sam says that’ll have to wait until they figure out where the killer is. It doesn’t make any sense yet, but Sam’s got a bird tattoo that he didn’t have before. They decide to go to the courthouse, where Sam sees another tattoo, a 6. He also shows the boys the gift he got for Andi, a necklace with a diamond in it, but they tell him that it’s a wife present, not a friend present. They convince him to get her something else, then they head upstairs to look for clues. If only they’d turn around, they would see that Curtis has walked in behind them.

They pretend they’re writing a book about true crimes and go to ask someone who works at the courthouse and says Curtis never used the same weapon twice and blamed everybody but himself, including his own now dead defense attorney. While they’re chatting, Judge Collins is killed by Curtis with barbed wire. They suspect the prosecutor is the next target. They finally get a vessel that doesn’t suck, a taser. Sock and Ben are still more interested in stalking Gladys than helping with Curtis, though.

Andi’s boyfriend Greg asks Sam for his help surprising Andi with a huge party at a club. Sam warns him she doesn’t want that, but he agrees to help. Then he gets another tattoo, a 1.

A bunch of kids go up to Gladys’ house and toss eggs at it. She runs out with a broom and chases them off her lawn. So apparently she’s this neighborhood’s mean old lady who all the kids are afraid of. She threatens to cook their brains, which I’m assuming is just a figure of speech.

Sam uses his taser. Too bad he used it on a cop, detective Dan Stafford, who looks nothing like Curtis. As he’s getting arrested, Dan sees his watch, so he takes the watch and leaves. He’s got the vessel as well.

Everybody meets up at the bar, where Andi reminds Sam she doesn’t want a surprise party. He’s afraid to deny it, smoothly running away saying Sock’s on fire. Andi takes this as a yes, and she gets upset at Greg, who she says hardly qualifies as her boyfriend. Josie says the person she’s describing for her boyfriend is somebody like Sam, and Andi again plays the friend card.

Sock and Ben return to Gladys’ place, this time when she’s at work. They find out she’s into angel figurines and flowers. Then she shows up and finds out someone’s been in her home, so she comes in swinging with a shovel. The way she goes crazy just makes the neighborhood, all of whom are watching the scene, even more convinced she’s mean.

Dan probably recognized the watch, which belonged to Curtis’ defense attorney. Sam’s afraid this will link him to the murder. Then the Devil’s kind enough to point out that Sam was also on the scene of the judge’s murder. To make him feel better, the Devil offers Sam the opportunity to “go all Barry Bonds on my ass” and gives him a baseball bat to hit him with. Sam’s more than happy to hit him again and again. When he gets back to work, Sam’s informed by Ted that the police showed up and searched his locker.

Sock, who claims he was 6 feet tall at age 7, starts to get sympathetic for Gladys, who he believes was once an angel and now is frustrated with little kids picking on her all day.

Greg’s got a new plan. He doesn’t want to throw Andi a surprise party on her birthday. Instead, he wants to blow it off, then throw the stupid party the next day. Sam tells Greg his idea is stupid, and Greg gets suspicious that Sam’s trying to sabotage their relationship, when in reality he’s doing a great job of sabotaging it on his own. Then they get into a chick fight.

Sock and Sam go to see the detective, where Sock pretends to be an attorney. Unsuccessfully. Dan threatens to beat his face with a phone book, getting him to leave the room. After all but accusing him of the murders, the detective spots some blood on Sam’s hand. Sam responds “That’s not my blood.” It’s just Greg’s blood from when he slapped him in the face, but still, not a good response. Then Sam starts asking the Devil for help and admits he’s talking to him. Dan spots Sam’s tattoo, which is now complete to spell out 613 Cardinal Drive, Dan’s address. Rather than locking him up, the detective seems to believe Sam’s story, so they go to check out his house. Sam asks for his taser back and tells him Mays is back.

Sock goes to see Gladys and apologizes for not considering her feelings. He goes into her house for coffee and cookies. She eventually tells him she wants to kiss him, and he’s fine with this. They start to kiss and get undressed. Then he wakes up from his nightmare.

Sam finally convinces Dan to get his taser. They go out to the car to get it, when a fireball comes flying at it. Like the barbed wire, Mays has a fire tattoo, as he’s drawing all his weapons off his body. Sam knows bullets won’t do anything, but he shoots Curtis with a shotgun. It’s enough of a distraction to prevent him from killing Dan and buys him the time he needs to get the taser from the burning car. Sam takes Dan into the house and calls 911 to get him some assistance. Before he can get through, though, Dan pulls a gun on him. Catching an escaped soul won’t work. He’ll need to catch an actual person to get credit for this, meaning Sam.

He tries to shoot Sam but can’t. Instead, the gun is turned around, and he shoots himself. Thanks to the Devil. With the combination of the defense lawyer’s watch and written confession upstairs, it should be pretty slam dunk that Dan gets blamed for being a copycat killer. It seems Dan, too, made a deal with the Devil. Catching himself was the fifth and final case in exchange for his soul.

Sam apologizes to Andi for hitting Greg, when she stops him and tells him they broke up… then she asks him “You punched Greg in the nose?” She jokes that she should have waited for her present first before breaking up, so Sam gives her the present he originally planned to give her. She cries and says she can’t accept the gift because it’s not a friend gift. He suggests not wearing it as a friend, but he’s too important to her for her to want to risk it.

When they go to the DMV to turn in the vessel, Gladys asks Sock whether he’s had any good dreams lately. This time, Gladys also has something to give Sam, a gift from the Devil. He doesn’t want to open it but Sock insists. It’s a get out of Hell free card. Whether it’s real or not, Sam’s keeping it.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Reaper episode 9 Charged, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.

In Reaper episode 6, Andi and Sam made up and decided to just be friends.

Sam’s friends want to hook him up with a girl, since he’s supposedly trying to be just friends with Andi. Somehow, Sock’s dancing attracts a bunch of girls. Eventually, one of them, Taylor, sits down and kisses Sam. But because none of the guys will strip, they’re on their own again.

The vessel is an 8-track tape that’s the soundtrack to Love, Bullets, and Blacktop. Sam runs into Andi, who tells him to come over and play it in her dad’s old cassette player. While they’re talking, Taylor calls, but he doesn’t want to discuss it with Andi.

The Devil transports Sam to the scene of a car crash. A completely flattened car has no victims in it, since they just walked away. He doesn’t get into many details, except where Taylor’s erogenous zones are.

On the news, they see another wreck and decide it’s related. They get a tip from a new guy at work who they hate, Russell, where to find someone selling a car. Sam decides to play the 8-track to get attention, and it makes two people dance. Once the music stops, they’re able to get away, though. After falling off the roof of the building, they get up and drive away. I’ll go out on a limb and say those are the two souls they’re after.

Taylor stops by work looking for Sam and just so happens to bump into Andi there. Andi tells Sam she stopped by and that he should call her.

Ben and Sock decide to pretend to put Russell’s car up for sale to attract the souls.

The Devil says love just comes down to endorphins and genitalia and again tries to talk him into getting with Taylor, who’s a guest at the wedding the Devil takes him to. He reluctantly asks her out.

The bait works, and the souls come to get the car. Only the guy gets out of the car. He drives a tough bargain. He wants to actually get inside the car. That may be tough without keys. He figures out something’s wrong, but they manage to catch him. He says “See you at midnight.” His girl drives away before they can capture her.

They get Love, Bullets, and Blacktop, but it’s on beta. So it’s off to Russell’s house, which looks like the 70s threw up. He puts the movie in but wants to get high first. Before he can carry his plan through, however, Hollie, the female soul, crashes through the house in her car and grabs an 8-track tape.

Andi reveals a hideaway at work, complete with TV and refreshments, and she and Sam watch the movie there. He finds out Midnight’s actually the name of an auto body shop. When they get there, Hollie’s there waiting for them and looking for a fight. She’s upset that she can’t figure out how to get a soul out of a random tape that isn’t actually a vessel, so she threatens that she’ll torch the place and only one person will leave alive (Sock asks which one). Just as she’s ready to torture Sam, Sock starts singing the song from the movie, distracting her long enough for Sam to get the real tape and capture her.

Sam asks Taylor if it’s her thing to kiss random guys in bars. She tells him he doesn’t look like the kind of guy to make the first move. He starts mauling her but stops when she asks how he knew about her earlobe being the thing that can get her to do anything. Sam decides he doesn’t want to give up on true love, whether the Devil says it’s fake or not.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Reaper episode 8 The Cop, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.

2 minute sneak peak video of Reaper Episode 7 Love, Bullets, and Blacktop.

In Reaper Episode 5, Sam made plans to meet Andi, but not surprisingly, he was unable to keep those plans, so she just thought he was a bigger liar than she already thought to begin with. He then returned to hating the Devil, who eventually warned him he can’t tell Andi the truth because it will be very bad for her.

This is different. They capture a soul in a snow globe at the beginning of the episode. They bring the vessel to the DMV, but Gladys is on vacation, so they’re forced to hold on to it. Sock wants to use the demon-holding vessel to play pranks, but Sam refuses.

It’s Halloween on Reaper. Ted’s dressed up as a pirate and wants to celebrate the holiday. All Andi wants to do is avoid Sam, and she says she doesn’t know how to be friends with him any more.

Sam finds out the Devil hates Halloween because nobody fears him on that day. Death and destruction are fine as long as they’re not commercialized. Then he informs Sam “the butcher, who gathered together and killed defenseless victims in the 1940s, is on the loose.

Sock didn’t listen to Sam. He took Leon, the soul in the snow globe, to a bar the night before because he buys the explanation that he’s not an angry killer any more due to therapy (despite the fact that he shot at them when they were capturing him).

The vessel for the butcher is a meat thermometer. The Devil was actually helpful this time, giving Sam enough information to go on, and they locate a man named Kirkwood who is believed to have fed his victims’ bodies to his dogs. They show up to find the butcher and are greeted by a demon with razor sharp claws, which they of course can’t get close enough to.

Since they’re not going to get close to the butcher, Sock decides that Leon should be allowed to help them. Sam still wants him to go to Hell. The DMV won’t take him, and the Devil doesn’t want him either because nobody can take him until Halloween’s over. Then more cheering Sam up. The Devil tells him that betrayal is the defining trait of humans, which makes them the most untrustworthy, unreliable species… except for bears. He says that’s why he’s having so much trouble because he’s finding out the truth.

Andi makes up new rules. Work talk only. Sock’s not helping him out either, as he’s decided to release Leon, who says he’s there to help.

Leon suggests capturing the soul during the day when he’s probably sleeping since he attacks mainly at night. Sam allows him to come along, barring any stupid moves. While taking Leon to get ideas (at a Chinese restaurant, strip club, and massage parlour), Sam and Sock start discussing what they hate about each other. After all that driving, Leon just leads them right back to where they started. Then he makes them to hand over the vessel at gunpoint and forces Sam underground with Kirkwood. Sock tells Leon if Sam goes, he goes, too, to which Leon readily agrees. As he’s hugging Sam, Sock finds the snow globe. They decide to toss it at Kirkwood. It doesn’t work, but does create enough of a blast to free them. On the surface, they grab the meat thermometer and avoid being killed by the dogmonster.

Leon’s pretty easy to find. He’s getting therapy as usual. They head to the doctor’s office. Leon threatens to shoot Sock, but Sam knows he can’t. After he puts down the gun, they capture him and send him to Hell, and on the way, he talks about continuing his therapy while there.

Sam tells Andi she can’t just throw everything away over one mistake (or a series of lies and/or mistakes). She’s impressed he took a stand, and she didn’t like fighting with him anyway. He invites her out after work. Hopefully he at least shows up this time. Then he gives the Devil a lecture about not being so negative.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Reaper Episode 7 Love, Bullets, and Blacktop, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.

In Reaper Episode 4, Andi invited Sam and his friends to a concert, but the Devil fought him on it and convinced him he couldn’t go because he’ll never get a vacation. Once plans changed to him and Andi alone, though, a little thing like the Devil wasn’t of great concern. But in order to save Andi’s life, Sam had to promise Ted he’d work for the next four weekends, which means no concert. It also means Andi’s getting tired of him lying to her.

Sam makes plans with Andi to go to karaoke. He says he’ll be there in 10 minutes. I think we all know that won’t be happening. A demon carrying a contract for his soul prevents that. He needs to sign/initial/etc. every page of the several thousand. For some reason, the demon doesn’t want Jell-o shots and instead wants Sam to sign everything right then and there. He was hoping he could find a loophole in the contract, but the medieval and Latin writing in the huge document negates that possibility.

When Sam tries to walk, he starts slipping all over the place. As usual, his demon powers suck. The stickiness this gets replaced with is a lot easier to deal with (at least he doesn’t need to hold Sock’s hand) but still weird.

Sam says he really wants to know what he missed last night. Bad idea. What he missed was Greg, a guy who was hanging out with Andi all night.

Andi plays a prank on Ted, putting a note on his car apologizing for the damage (which is made up). She puts the regional manager’s phone number on it. He searches for 10 minutes to find out what’s wrong, then calls the number and calls the guy an idiot. Completely irrelevant but a good prank nonetheless.

Sam’s excuse for flaking: jogging. Late night jogging. If you’re gonna lie, at least make it believeable. Or tell her the truth. That sounds better.

The Devil, who Sam hates (again), shows Sam pictures of people who died because they slipped. After asking, he’s given a clue that’s remotely helpful, slime. After he climbs out of the sewer, Sam sees a guy walking in the middle of the street get hit by a car, but that guy turns out to be a slime monster.

The vessel is a sweater that looks like a really embarrassing homemade Christmas gift. For some reason, Sam thought it would be something that made sense and that actually looked impressive. As he’s leaving, sweater tied around his waist, Sam promises Andi he’ll tell her what’s up tonight.

Andi gets flowers at work from Greg. Ted says he approves.

The boys head into the sewer and find a slime trail. This trail of slime leads to a political fundraiser. Too easy. Sam says he’s friends with Ed, the guy who died in the car accident earlier, which doesn’t get them anywhere except thrown out. Sock decides the fact that they get no reaction when informing Bobby Hartford, one of the men at the fundraiser, about Ed’s death means it’s him who’s the monster. He grabs the sweater and shoves it on Hartford’s head. Since this doesn’t work, now it’s time for them to not only be escorted out but be busted by the cops as well.

Josie’s boss convinced Hartford to not press charges. He’s about to run for office and doesn’t want to deal with them, so he’s willing to let them go if they don’t get near him again. When he gets out of jail, Sam realizes he’s three hours late to meet Andi. When he arrives at her house, she’s out with Greg. The Devil dug up some dirt on him, telling him Greg’s been dating twins. Sam doesn’t want to stoop to that level. He says he’ll outcharm him.

They find out Hartford’s father dumped a bunch of toxic waste while he was still alive. Speaking of fathers, Sam’s dad wants to meet with the Devil, but the Devil’s not interested.

The boys head to the dumpsters to dig up the ugly sweater. While there, Ben gets attacked by slime. Sock saves him with used kitty litter.

When Sam meets with Josie, Andi calls and says she’s going out with Greg and wants her to double date. Sam spills the truth about the twins but asks her to not tell Andi. So much for the charm. After she spills coffee, they find out the sweater is really absorbent. Then Sock comes in with a lead.

This brings them to a woman taking a shower, which Sock’s getting a bit too much joy from. Slime comes out of her shower, but it goes down the pipes before they can catch it, so they head into the sewers, where Hartford’s dad grabs Sam. Sock puts on the sweater and captures the soul. Sam and Sock get stuck in that position, hugging, but their friendly neighborhood DMV demon helps free them.

Josie told Andi about the twins, who turn out to be Greg’s sisters. Now she’s fed up with him, and the worse his relationship gets with her, the worse his relationship gets with the Devil. Afterwards, the Devil warns him that if he tells Andi the truth, it will be bad for him and very bad for her. While he’s telling Sam about it being noble to keep the ones you love in the dark, we get a glimpse of his father, burning the contract he pretended he was going to help read.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Reaper episode 6 Leon, which airs Tuesday at 9/8 on The CW.

In Reaper episode 3, Andi decided to go back to college, but thanks to some help from the Devil, the all classes were cancelled due to the mysterious appearance of asbestos. C’mon, Sam. The Devil gave you another opening. Don’t screw it up.

Episode 4 starts off the way every week starts off: with Sam’s mind getting screwed with. As he’s going to get in his car, his keys disappear into thin air, so he has to take a cab to work. When he goes to pay the cab driver, the money disappears as well, along with his wallet. Ben has his keys but doesn’t know why. Then he finds his wallet in a paint can.

A new vessel arrives. As they’re trying to decide a good reason not to open it, Andi comes in and tells Sam she can get tickets to a concert for them, them meaning all of them. They make plans to head to Idaho, a 7 hour trip. Ted comes to tell them they’re in trouble for their earlier destruction of property when Sock was playing rodeo and riding a homemade bull, and Andi, who wasn’t even there, is lumped in with them. He forbids talking of a social nature while at work.

The Devil takes Sam to the scene of a car crash, where someone’s dead at the hands of an escaped soul. As usual, he’s not real big on minor annoyances like details. After Sam pushes, he’s told the name of the soul, Bellifiore, which is about all he’s going to get. Sam, hoping to get this over with so he can go to the concert, stands up for himself and says he refuses to accept his power over him. The Devil lets him know he doesn’t have a choice but to work for him by sending two tractor trailers that he needs to jump out of the way of to avoid being crushed.

The boys head back to the vessel, which is moving around. With much hesitation and fear, they open it to find a not so terrifying bird. While searching, the mouse disappears, as do Ben and Sock. They come back after Ted gives Sam a lecture about talking to himself. This gives him the idea to search for Bellifiore’s name plus the word disappear, which leads them to a magician DVD. On it, they learn he was found guilty for murder.

Andi breaks the news to Sam that she could only get two tickets to the concert. He says she should go with Josie, but she says she asked him first. The problem is the Devil made it clear he didn’t want him to go. I don’t get this Devil guy. Does he want these two together or not? But considering the invitation to be alone with Andi overnight, Sam forgets that the Devil tried to run him over with trucks.

Acting on a tip from a lady with a bunch of apples (there were apples at the scene of the accident), the boys go to a magic show. The magician gets pissed off because people applaud but don’t give him a standing ovation. He invites one of the onlookers on stage to assist him with a trick. He stabs the guy, leaving him unharmed, then disappears. When they walk outside, they discover the guy wasn’t so unharmed, as he’s got massive internal injuries and is being hauled away by an ambulance. Sam feels Bellifiore hates the audience because he blames them for his crappy career when he was alive.

Sam asks his mom to see the contract for his soul. Should be a pretty simple thing to find, but for some reason it takes some searching. Sam looks in the envelope and finds the contract fell apart. Sam tells his keys not to disappear, and they listen. His car disappears instead. As he’s walking, the Devil drives by and tells Sam his rights are an easy question to answer: he doesn’t have any. Complaining he has nothing to look forward to, Sam asks for some incentive. The Devil has his own plan in mind, and he goes to see Andi. When Sam gets to work, his car is there, parked in a handicapped spot and ticketed. Then they try to get out of work early, and Ted says there was a guy in there earlier giving away tickets to a magic show. The bird got out and flew away because Ben let him out to talk, so it may not be as quick a process to get there as they thought.

When he arrives at the magic show, Sam tries to convince Andi to leave, saying the show sucks. Of course, Bellifiore hears this and invites Sam on stage to see some real magic. He tries to talk his way out of it, but Andi says she’ll do it, so Sam agrees to do it instead. Knowing better than to admit the sword’s real, Sam steals it and runs. He finds out that Bellifiore is powerless without his sword. Bellifiore grabs his sword back, and a chase ensues. In the nick of time, Sock and Ben show up with the vessel. Thanks to Bellifiore’s mocking, Sam figures out how to work the vessel. He makes the bird disappear, and it reappears overhead (and much larger), attacking Bellifiore and sending him back to Hell.

In his rush to get out of the store to rescue Andi, Sam agreed to work the next four weekends plus Thanksgiving, which means he can’t go to the concert with her. She asks why he would do that, but he can’t answer. While he’s moping at a bar, the Devil comes up to him. He tells him he realizes that if anything’s going to kill him, it’s going to be a soul from Hell, not the Devil, who needs him. The Devil agrees to give him the contract.

Quotes from this episode:

Sam: I just had this really weird vision that he stabbed me.
Sock: I just ate this really weird cupcake, so I guess we’re even.

Sock: Beta males are in right now. Chicks dig it.

Devil: I’m not Google.

Sam to the Devil: God, you sound like Ted.

Customer: How much for the flat screen?
Sock (not feeling like talking): $1 million. Try Best Buy.

Sock: Dude, Winston is not a bird’s name, Ben.
Ben: Okay, well you tell me what a bird’s name is.
Sock: I don’t know. How about Flappy? Or Paul?

Ben: I’ve never seen a dead body up close before. It’s messed up.
Sock: I know, right. I mean you think that seeing Scarface all those times I’d be better prepared for that.

Sam: You put the contract for my soul with my third grade report card and Mr. Huggles?

Devil: Sarcasm is the lowest form of social discourse.

Guy driving by (to the Devil): Go to Hell, jerk.

Sam: I’m just the guy sending you back to Hell. Just… as soon as my friends show up.

Ben (saying goodbye to Winston): You a freaky ass bird, who scared the crap out of me, and now I can’t be comfortable around birds ever again.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Reaper episode 5 What About Blob?, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.

In Reaper episode 2, Sam accepted his fate as the devil’s bounty hunter (then again, that’s what I thought in episode 1 as well), and as a reward, the Devil set it up so that he would be working with Andi in the garden center.

Sam’s day starts off with his toothbrush having a large bug on it. It doesn’t get any better from there, as any time he tries to put anything in his mouth, it’s covered in bugs. As Bert is feeding Sam his apple, which needless to say looks odd to those around them, Andi comes up and invites him to a lecture at her college and then out for coffee after. He rejects this because he’s stupid or something.

Ted offers Sam a promotion to assistant manager of the plumbing department, with a message that he’s going to spend the rest of his life working at The Work Bench. Sam tells the Devil he just wants something that doesn’t suck. The Devil tells him he’ll need to come up with a better plan than that, but in the meantime, he shows him some pictures of dead people, who all got killed by bugs. Sam and his sidekicks follow a van with a giant bug and think they’ve located the escaped soul, but a bunch of bugs fly in and kill him, so that lead’s out the window. It does, however, lead them to an apartment complex where the soul lives.

Andi met a guy at school who’s trying to convince her to quit her job and go to school full time. They’ll have to deal with that later, but for now they have to worry about the federal offense of stealing and opening other people’s mail, as Sock grabbed the mail from the apartment complex and is investigating it to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.

Bert and Sam sneak into Josie’s office looking for Harold Bunsen, who was the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, then disappeared in 1972. This week’s vessel is a toaster. As usual, their first attempt at using it is a failure, and this time, in the process of escaping, they leave a clue behind telling Harold where they’ll be.

Ted calls Sam and Andi to his office. Sam rejects the job offer, so Ted gives it to Andi. She says no and blurts out her plans to quit. While they’re out celebrating, or pretending to celebrate, the Devil shows up and says Sam’s embarassing him because he’s not getting the soul or the girl.

Harold shows up at The Work Bench and blames Gloria, a jealous woman going after anyone she thinks is coming between them, for the murders. Armed with a fog machine, a toaster, and some long extension cords, they head back to Bunsen’s apartment. Gloria outsmarts them, and while Sam and Ben check the apartment, she corners Sock and convinces him to spill the beans about the plan, which is prety easy because it’s Sock. Ben and Sam come in to find Sock in trouble, but Harold walks in, so she lets him go. Harold tells her he never loved her and just stayed with her out of fear. The boys then realize the toaster is a bug zapper and was working in its original state, but they just didn’t realize it. After unfixing the toaster, they’re able to capture Gloria and zap her back to Hell.

As we can probably come to expect, there’s a hidden meaning in this. Because Harold didn’t say how he truly felt, a bunch of people died, and he lived a miserable life. Sam’s able to relate to this. He runs to Andi’s school to tell her he’s upset that she quit, but when he gets there, he finds out all the classes were cancelled because of a tip the school received about the building being filled with asbestos. Once again, the Devil comes through for Sam.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Reaper episode 4 Magic, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.

In Reaper episode 1, Sam found out his parents had sold his soul to the devil. So basically just a normal 21st birthday. When all was said and done, though, he seemed happy to be on this new path where he had some direction and responsibility.

Until he had some time to sleep on it anyway, so now he’s back to avoiding the issue. The problem is the issue refuses to avoid him. The vessel the Devil gave him keeps following him around wherever he goes. For some reason, leaving the box in the woods and running away from it doesn’t trick it.

Andi and Sam end up on cart duty, which means wandering the neighborhood to find missing shopping carts. She sees this as an opportunity to goof off and invites him along for the ride. He’s happy about this, but the Devil shows up wanting him to open the vessel. This happens while Sam and Sock are stocking shelves, which in Bert’s mind includes throwing merchandise. Because he’s distracted, Sam misses, and it knocks out a customer. The boss informs them a bloodied customer is not a happy customer. As punishment, they’re put on the night shift until they inventory the whole store, which he suggests will take a year.

Sam brings Bert home for dinner and tells him not to blow his secret because Sam already told his mom that the thing with the Devil was done. He says no problem and the secret’s safe with him, so obviously it takes all of two seconds for him to blow it.

The Devil transports Sam to the top of the building, where Sam again tries to back out of the deal. Yeah, that’ll go over well. There are no threats this time, however. Instead, just a guilt trip about innocents dying.

The next morning, Sam finally breaks down and opens the vessel. It’s an RC car. Of course, he’s not provided with any instructions as to how to actually use it. After that, his father gives him a brand new car in an effort to buy him off, so he doesn’t tell his mom that he’s working for the Devil.

The demon they’re after is using lightning strikes to cause blackouts. One blackout is at a hospital, and they just so happen to order generators from Sam’s store, so he volunteers to take them down there. They find out that the hospital used to be the medical wing for a guy who got arrested. On his way back to the store, Sam checks out a guy whose car got struck by lightning, and while there, he sees the soul he’s chasing.

Back at home, the Devil shows up and asks Sam if he’s having problems at home. Sam says he’s the problem, but the Devil responds that Sam’s the problem because he lied to his mother. He advises him that lying never solves anything. Shouldn’t the Devil encourage lying?

Sam asks Josie what she knows about Arthur Ferry, and she tells him about how he stole energy and sold it to other states, causing rolling blackouts and people to die. The news is on the radio, and they hear a report about problems at the dam, so they drive up there to find out what’s going on. They find Arthur and try to send the RC car after him, but the minor glitch in the plan is that it gets run over by a truck. Even without the vessel, Sam’s not intimidated by the soul and stands up to him. He escapes, but at least Sam and his friends aren’t dead.

They take the RC car back to work, where they “repair” it with duct tape, unsure whether or not it will actually work, but then again, they still don’t even know how it works to begin with. The really bad news is they work at a store with a lot of power tools, all of which can be easily turned against them in a scenario such as this. The vessel then falls apart, but Sam’s not concerned because he has other plans.

He goes into the parking lot and yells for Arthur, who’s upset because they took away his name on the building, which is hiding the good he did. Sam figures out that the car was just for show and that it was the controller that was actually the vessel. It turns into a lightning rod, which allows him to capture Arthur. When they bring the vessel to Gladys at the DMV, she’s pleasant as always, telling them the fact that they haven’t been killed yet astonishes her.

Sam goes home and tells his mother the truth. She’s okay with it and says no more secrets… except they’re not going to tell Sam’s brother. Then at work, he’s pulled off the midnight shift and put on garbage duty, since the store looks like a bomb went off and all, but the Devil pulls some strings and gets him into the garden center, where he can now shovel manure instead. But the Devil’s not so bad after all, as Andi’s also working in the garden center.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Reaper episode 3 All Mine, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.

Reaper seems to have won over critics already, so that combined with the hope that we may finally be returning to the funny/supernatural roots that made The WB worth watching had me interested in watching the premiere.

Sam Oliver (Bret Harrison, Grounded For Life/Brad O’Keefe) wakes up on the morning of his 21st birthday, and his parents seem overly anxious about the day. His mom tells him she wants him to have a great day, no matter what happens. His friend Bert Wysocki (Tyler Labine) says they should get in a car, get some smack, and kill a hooker in Vegas to celebrate his birthday, to which his mother responds by leaving the room crying.

He gets grief from his brother Kyle for not completing college and for still working at a place where he has to wear an apron, which gets him to thinking he is getting tired of this place. Bert tells him he does want to keep working there because he’s going to make it a topless store eventually. He then tells him he should go after Andi (Missy Peregrym, Heroes/Candice Wilmer), but Sam says they’re just friends. While in the car, a dog starts barking and jumping at the car. Then on his way into work, Sam sees a shopping cart going through the parking lot. As he attempts to grab it, it runs away from him. Odd but seemingly nothing he considers out of the ordinary, yet anyway.

He does make something of an attempt to run with Bert’s idea of getting together with Andi when discussing that they both have the same day off, but when he asks her what her plans are for her day off, she lets him know she’s going to be writing a psych paper in the library.

As he’s working (watching TV with baby chicks and thinking it’s actually flames), he notices that something’s about to fall on Andi’s head, and he jumps to prevent it. He knocks the box out of the way, but after doing that, he says he didn’t even touch it because it was too far away. Bert throws a bottle at his head to prove he can’t move it with his mind. He again tries to bring up the subject of going out with Andi, but this time he’s interrupted by a bunch of dogs, standing in the aisle and angry.

Once that ordeal’s done with, he says he’s not feeling well and heads home. He’s okay until a man appears in his backseat… a man who introduces himself as the Devil. He gets into a car wreck, and when he gets out to check, there is no man in his backseat.

His father’s waiting up for him when he gets home, expecting he might have had a bad day. Sam says he thinks he might be going insane. He tells his dad about his day, when his dad tells him he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a cure for an illness he had before Sam was born.

Strangely enough, Sam doesn’t have much trouble believing this. He goes and tells Bert. “How drunk are you?” “Totally sober.” “How drunk am I?” Sock’s mostly upset nothing cool like that ever happens to him, but he buys it as well.

When he gets home, the Devil’s there waiting for him (I wonder if this Devil guy has another name so I don’t have to keep calling him “the Devil”). He tells Sam he’s going to be working for him on Earth, bringing escaped souls back to Hell like a bounty hunter. “All you have to do is track down fugitives and haul their asses over to a portal to Hell. Easy.” Any place that seems like Hell on Earth is Hell on Earth, like the DMV on Union St.

His first fugitive is a firefighter who escaped from Hell and also happens to weigh twice as much as Sam. He’s the one responsible for setting fires in town. The Devil gives Sam a vessel to trap him in. Sam tries to refuse to help, but he must, or the Devil gets his mother’s soul. When he opens the box, he finds a Dirt Devil inside, one that causes a truck to move. Shouldn’t he have to do this somewhat in secret instead of just telling all his friends/coworkers?

The Devil seems to have forgotten one minor detail. The fugitve can turn into flames and shoot them as well. Sam wants to catch him but can’t get the dustbuster to work. In the process, Ben, their friend from work, gets burned. Sam blames himself. He goes after the firefighter alone but just shows up to a burned down house.

When he gets home, his mom tells him she wants to go instead and to tell them to come for her. He pretends everything’s back to normal. Then, he heads to his room, which has been converted into a hockey rink. Sam gets frustrated and tries to give up, but the Devil tells him to investigate and figure out why the fireman does what he does. After killing the Zamboni driver, he advises him he doesn’t accept failure.

Sam goes to get Sock and figures out that the fireman is burning down the same places he was 50 years ago, so he wants to find out who he was when he was alive. They go to dig up legal records from Josie, Bert’s ex-girlfriend, who works in a courthouse. She finds out all the arson attempts Ned (excellent name for a scary killer) did when he was alive were unsuccessful, until he died in a fire he set at his parents’ house, which has not yet been burned down again but has been rebuilt as an elementary school.

After figuring out that the Dirt Devil wasn’t working before because it needed to be recharged, the boys head down to the elementary school to confront Ned. Sam figures out how to harness his powers to redirect the flames toward Ned. He then vacuums him up and takes him to the DMV.

Sam then realizes he must do this for the rest of his life, but he doesn’t mind it. He feels good about helping people and being responsible.

This is one of the better premieres I’ve seen in a while. Definitely a return to the old days of Buffy/Angel/Charmed. Good premise and well written, and the Bert character is hilarious.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Reaper episode 2, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW.