From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: Crossroad Blues"

If it wasn't for bad luck...I wouldn't have...
No kind of luck at all!

Now we get some time in the Deep South, specifically Mississippi. Before that, though, we have the great enemy that all fans of Supernatural must one day face: the opening recap!

We get a few scenes from Devil's Trap and In My Time of Dying in particular, given their relevance to the episode we're about to see.

After that, our episode actually begins in a blues bar in 1938. An African American man is playing a guitar with astounding, almost unnaturally grand ability as he aloofly makes eyes at a woman in the crowd and smokes a cigarette...and then comes the sounds of hounds in the distance. A shadow passing over the curtained windows of the bar. By the time he attempts to flee, it's far, far too late...they re coming for him. He drops his guitar and locks himself in his home...but something is beating on the door, barking viciously. The man drops to his knees, seemingly about to accept his fate...and then three people break into the house, finding him having seizures.

All he can manage to mutter when asked to say something is something about dogs.

In the present, Sam tells Dean that he is officially on a Federal database after what happened in St. Louis the previous year. While Dean laughs this off, Sam reiterates that this makes their job all the harder and that they'll have to be more careful. Speaking of jobs, Sam has one for them in Mississippi, a man who apparently fell from his apartment complex and kept ranting and raving in the days before he did about a black dog, one that the police couldn't find.

The two to speak the man's partner, posing as journalists from Architectural Digest. His partner is apparently bitter about the man always having gotten accolades and tributes while he received nothing. He confides in the brothers, telling him there was a time when the man was nothing more than a bartender who couldn't design a pop tent, working out of a bar called Lloyd's. Then, ten years ago, he suddenly shifted gears and became the Mozart of architecture.

A true genius who seemed to die young...

You gonna finish your chicken?

Sam and Dean swing by animal control, Dean gets the name, number, and MySpace of the lady working the front desk (and not knowing what MySpace is...which is fair even for 2006) and learn that there are 19 cases of black dogs having been reported. After some time searching, they come to the home of a doctor who...isn't present, but her housekeeper is and explains the doctor was the youngest surgeon in the history of the hospital she worked for...something that began about ten years ago. Dean snags a picture off of her refrigerator, showing that she was at a bar called Lloyd's in 1996...

The doctor, however, isn't present as she left two days ago and didn't say where she was going. We see her in a hotel, looking worried out of her mind. When the owner comes along to demand she either vacate or pay for another night in the room, she does so...seeing a horribly disfigured face on the man when she hands him the money.

Sam and Dean, meanwhile, have made it to the bar known as Lloyd's. Dean notes that the place is at a crossroads and that yarrow flowers, which are used for summoning rituals, are there. They dig up at the dead center and find a box at the center with all the ingredients needed to summon a demon. The people who have been seeing a black dog aren't seeing a black dog, but a Hell Hound.

Dean also makes a comment about making a deal never ending well.

They work out that whatever demon is out there, it's back and it's collecting on all the deals made in 1996.

At her motel, the doctor cries in fear behind a wall as the Hell Hounds beat on her door.  When they seem to stop, she goes to investigate and something bursts through her window, her clothing begin torn away and fresh wounds erupting over her skin that look suspiciously like bite or claw marks...

After the commercial break, we see the Blues Singer from the beginning, making a deal with a Crossroads Demon to become the best Blues Man who ever lived. She agrees, kissing him, and the deal is struck. When he opens his eyes, she's gone and he looks at his guitar.

Sam and Dean discuss the legend of Robert Johnson, who the man in the flashbacks is implied to be, and that he may have gone out a similar way. Dean initially believes that they shouldn't interference, but Sam continues to be Dean's morality chain and they decide to go after one of the last few people who made the deal. Getting to George Daro's apartment, they find some kind of dust across the barrier of the door. Goofer dust, as George tells them. The boys entreat him, trying to help, but George has made peace with himself. He made a deal to be talented and is still broke after all this time with a bunch of paintings nobody wanted and he agrees that it was not worth it.

It seems that George was the one to summon the demon originally and it stuck around to make more deals. 

George has made his peace with what he's done and that he deserves what is coming to him. While he doesn't want to be saved, he does tell them about one of the other people the demon made deals with and tells them to go and save someone who wants to be saved.

. . .and suddenly, Hell ain't lookin' so bad.

Elsewhere, a man - Evan - is working at his desk when he hears the barking of the Hell Hounds. His wife is playfully chiding him, about to go on a trip to meet her sister. He embraces her one last time, clearly not saying a lot of things that he rather wished he would or could. A tender, loving moment is ruined when his wife's face distorts and becomes grotesque to his eyes.

Sam and Dean arrive to talk to Evan, who slams the door in their faces the moment that they mention Lloyd's. They break in and manage to talk Evan down. Dean tries to nail Evan on making his deal, but Evan reveals that he made the deal to save his wife from dying of cancer.

An actual, altruistic deal...hmm...

Dean tries to play it off as being selfish...which is really rich given events later, but we'll get to that in a few seasons' time.

Dean comes up with a plan to trap and exorcise the demon, but Sam doesn't like the idea: specifically because he thinks that Dean thinks John made a deal himself. Dean confirms that he thinks John might have done that, which is clearly messing him up. However, with Sam having no better plan, Dean enacts his own.

After burying the box at the crossroads, Dean encounters a woman in a black dress. The Crossroads Demon knows him and after she flirts a bit, they get down to business, Dean suggesting they go into the Impala. She agrees and they head off.

Meanwhile, Sam pours down the goofer dust to protect Evan.

Dean offers himself up to get Evan out of his contact and the Demon is amused. "Like father, like son." Which catches Dean off-guard. He almost tricks her into the car, but she spies the outside edge of the Devil's Trap Dean had painted under it and reacts...poorly. She taunts him with the knowledge of that John is now suffering in Hell and preys upon his insecurities about it, claiming to him that it's all his fault in the end.

As the Hell Hounds bear down on Evan, Dean seemingly accepts the Demon's deal to bring John back. However, Dean just managed to lure her under the water tower...where he painted another Devil's Trap. He makes it clear that he's only going to let her walk until she breaks the deal with Evan. When she refuses, Dean pulls out the Lesser Key of Solomon and gets to work.

The goofer dust line gets broken and Sam and Evan make a break for it and then the Demon, finally, relents and recalls the Hell Hound. After some rather intense tonsil hockey, Evan is free. When it seems that Dean is about to double-cross her, she claims that she'll come back from Hell and skin Evan alive when she comes back.

As a final twist of the knife, the Demon tells John the worst of it all - John is in Hell. When Dean rounds on her to do the exorcism, the Demon escapes and leaves a frightened girl behind.

Back in the Impala, Dean has gotten Sam up to speed and Sam declares that they have to live because that's what John would have wanted. When Sam asks Dean if he was really considering the deal to get John back, Dean pointedly doesn't answer...instead, he cranks up the radio and they drive off into the night...

Crossroad Blues is a major episode that is the set up for a great deal of ramifications later on in the Season and indeed the series. While In My Time of Dying was the first one to give us deals with demons being showcased, this episode is the first one that solidified what the rules were around it. We also received the revelation of what happened to John after making his deal with Yellow Eyes...and how that will haunt Sam and Dean for quite a while to come.

"But I wanna be the Crossroads Demon in the other episodes, too!"

It's a monumental episode, and one that is pretty good at that. The plot is fairly simple, but covers a lot of ground with the nature of the people who make deals and the revelation to Dean that not everyone is making deals with demons for personal gain or glory. Sometimes, they do it out of love.

Was Evan Hudson selfish? Kinda. Was what he did perfectly understandable? Oh, you better believe it.

Take a hint here, Dean. Just not too much of a hint.

Next time, we'll be going away from demons to go back to demons...sort of. When we return, it's Croatoan time!