From MadCap's Couch - Supernatural: "Bad Day At Black Rock"

"Gordon, they called to ask about my car's extended warranty..."

Here's some new ground we haven't really covered in Supernatural: cursed artifacts! Okay, we've technically had that with the Hook Man, but I count that one as a ghost, not a cursed artifact. This is purely a story about an object that bestows great luck on its user... until it doesn't, but we'll get to that in a bit.

The episode gives us a quick recap of the Season so far as well as dipping back into Season 2 with some shots from Hunted with Gordon Walker getting some key focus, which we know can't be a good sign. We get the restatement from Ruby that she can help Sam save Dean...

And we begin at a correctional facility. A hunter friend of Gordon's - Kubrick - comes to visit him in prison, telling him about the events of the Season 2 finale, telling him that Sam Winchester checks out as far as he can find information on him. Gordon is convinced that Sam Winchester is not what he seems and that he must die.

Elsewhere, Sam and Dean argue the pros and cons of using Ruby to help them, Sam making some very good pragmatic points. A phone in the glove box goes off, one of John's that Dean keeps charged up in case somebody calls. Getting some information, Sam learns that John not only has a storage place outside of Buffalo, but that someone had just broke into it.

Kubrick has joined forces with another hunter, Cready, on his hunt after Sam Winchester... and we learn that Kubrick is a bit of a Bible thumper, keeping a really creepy statue of Jesus' face that looks like it's always looking at you...

"Wait, so I can use this and not kill my love interests?"

Sam and Dean head to the lock up and check it out, finding some bloody footprints, traps, and some trips down memory lane as Sam finds an old soccer trophy he won years ago and Dean finds his very first sawed-off shotgun. Just small, subtle reminders that even though John was an obsessive Knight Errant (and was, ultimately, a terrible parent), he did love his boys. Further in, they find a bunch of boxes that hold cursed items that John collected over the years... and they find one box missing where literally nothing else in the entire lockup has been touched. Dean just hopes they haven't opened it.

Two crooks, one nursing a terrible gunshot wound from John's rigged shotgun, break into the box and find... a rabbit's foot. The injured one is pissed off until their landlord pops in... and upon seeing the wound tells him he was an Army medic and that it's his... lucky day.

How interesting...

Later on, Sam and Dean have managed to track the crooks down and find the crooks engaged in poker that the previous injured thug is winning an almost impossible number of times. Despite Sam and Dean making a strong entry, the thugs manage to get the jump on them and in the struggle, Sam grabs the rabbit's foot and the tide turns. Fast. Both the thugs get taken down. Later, the boys are in the Impala and while Sam is going through John's journal... Dean has brought some scratch offs which Sam inevitably wins a ridiculous amount of money from just one of them. While Sam is cautious, Dean doesn't think the rabbit's foot is all that cursed.

Cut back to the thugs, the previously a gunshot victim one has his luck turn... bad. Tripping on a beer bottle on the floor, he impales himself through the back of the head with a barbecue fork much to the terror of his friend.

Sam calls up Bobby and learns from him that he knew about John's lockdown and even built the cursed boxes for him. Bobby knows the good luck charm is very powerful so long as you have it, but the moment you lose it your luck starts turning. While Bobby doesn't know if the curse can even be broken, he promises the boys that he's going to look into his contacts and his books.

Sam hates the bright lights.
Dean loves the pie.

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean go out to eat... and become the one millionth customers at Biggerson's and earn free food for one year! We get back to Cready and Kubrick after they put the word out about Sam, who begin looking into somewhere to eat. Sam and Dean, meanwhile, get an incredibly helpful waitress  who accidentally pours too much coffee for Sam... and he suddenly becomes hilariously clumsy and finds the rabbit's foot is gone.

Thus, we are introduced to Bela, who has taken the rabbit's foot via a cloth to prevent having the curse enacted upon her. Bela is probably one of, if not the most hated character in all of Supernatural. I can't really give my full thoughts on her until the end of the season, but needless to say... I don't really think she's worthy of the hate. Not in the same way as certain other characters the show seems all too keen to give a pass to in spite of them doing far, far worse things than Bela ever did.

But with the rabbit's foot in Bela's possession, Sam's luck is turning bad... so much so that Cready and Kubrick find the photograph from the Biggerson's award to Sam and Dean right there on the website... and have their lead.

Sam and Dean return to the only living crook, who is drinking hard. He laughs at Sam and Dean's situation and Dean works some psychology on the thug and gets him to give the name of the woman who hired the two to pull off the heist - "Lugosi". The two head off, Sam losing a shoe but Bobby having found a ritual that can cleanse the foot. When Dean gives the name, Bobby is able to identify Bela as Bela... and knows that she's bad news as well as not being a hunter, but Bobby might know some people who will know where to find her. He narrows their search down to Queens and Dean leaves Sam at a motel, telling him not to move or even scratch his nose until he gets back.

"Hello, I am your attempt to draw a male audience for the evening."

At Queens in a very fancy-looking producers house, Bela is having a phone argument with someone named Luke about a deal and Bela just misses Dean on her closed circuit television, getting a gun. The two square off. While we get a comedy bit of the A/C in Sam's room going bad and then bursting into flame (and attracting the attention of Cready and Kubrick), Dean and Bela have a philosophical discussion about the supernatural, the differences between hunters and the work that Bela does in selling artifacts, ones that she says could put someone's children's children through college. Dean ends up rolling a Nat 20 on his Sleight of Hand check and getting the foot back, making a narrow escape... a lucky escape, one might say.

Kubrick gives Sam the "I'm on a mission from God" speech after he and Cready duct tape him to a chair. After some time torturing him, Kubrick is clearly coming across as unhinged and Cready is getting more and more uncomfortable as Sam seems to become more and more pathetic. Dean shows up in the nick of time, utilizing the rabbit's foot to take out both of the men and save Sam. After giving Kubrick gets a remote to the face, Dean has only two words:

"I'm Batman!"

Later, at the graveyard, Dean uses a few scratch-offs and Bela unfortunately comes around for a final stand off... getting a shot on Sam when Dean fails at his psych trick from earlier. When Dean chastises her for this, she rightly points out that they've all shot a few people. Unfortunately for her, Dean also pulls another fast one and forces her to touch the rabbit's foot, getting her to agree to let them destroy it. She laments losing the money from the deal and then leaves, conspicuously touching the gravestone that Dean's jacket is on as she leaves... and the boys finding out as they leave that Bela snaked the lottery tickets worth about $46,000.

Chump change for her, but it's the little things in life.

Kubrick returns to Gordon, now convinced that Sam is the Anti-Christ and that he must die. Gordon tells him that he's glad to have him onboard (clearly a bit off-put by the man's Jesusing) and reiterates... Sam Winchester must die.

"Awww, shit, Kubrick! That's all you had to say!"

And that's Bad Day At Black Rock. Not a bad one, and it's interesting to see a different side of the Supernatural universe with cursed objects. While we've had a few mentions of voodoo being used in the series, this is the first time we see a byproduct of it being used in the series that has nothing to do with demons or reapers. It's going to be interesting going forward, seeing where they decide to take magic and the explanations for it within the show's universe. 

We get our first introduction to Bela, and it's not a bad one. Again, we're seeing a side of the Supernatural universe that we haven't seen yet. With a world of monsters and magic, it's logical that we'd eventually see people trying to turn that into profit. We've seen a similar idea done in Faith, but this is the first more literal sense of the idea and it's rich with storytelling potential. Who knows what kind of stories they might be able to draw from this well going forward? I'm excited at all the possibilities that lie before us!

... stop laughing!

Next time, we're heading to Sin City... no, not Vegas. What kind of show do you think this is? One with a budget?