From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: Born Under a Bad Sign"

Oh, my god! Sam, I can see Jesus in your shirt!

Here we are, the final Supernatural review of 2021! In fact, depending on how things play out, it could be the last post of 2021! It's been a heck of a journey this year, hasn't it? Reapers, evil clowns that eat people, vampires, necromancy, psychic hullabaloo, ghosts, more ghosts, demons, a demonic virus, more psychic hullabaloo, more ghosts, a shapeshifter, and yet another ghost!

. . .seriously, there are a lot of ghost stories in the early seasons, but everyone gets some hung up on the angels vs. demons crap later on.

Anyway, Born Under a Bad Sign starts us off with a recap of the reveal of what killed Anthony Harvelle - namely that he died on a hunt with John. We also get some reminders of Devil's Trap with Meg being possessed and the exorcism that followed.

We start off with Dean calling Ellen in a panic. Apparently, Sam has gone missing. When Dean finally does get a hold of Sam, we cut to Sam sitting somewhere with bloodied knuckles. It seems that Sam is covered in blood and has no memory of how it happened...all he knows is that it's not his blood.

Checking the records, Dean finds out that Sam checked in two days ago (and is a Bon Jovi fan). However, nobody saw him covered in blood. Sam doesn't take this well, thinking he's going dark side. They work it backwards, finding that Sam has about a week's worth of time missing. Finding some bloody fingerprints on the latch, they head out and start looking for anything Sam finds familiar. Eventually, they come to a storage shed that Sam happens to have a key for. They find an old style car and search it, finding more blood and a bloodied knife as well as a pack of cigarettes (which makes Dean suspicious).

Finding a receipt as well, they head to a gas station and the attendant tells Sam to leave before he calls the cops. It seems that Sam was rowdy, getting drunk and smoking and whipping bottles at the man's head. Getting Sam to go back to the car, Dean manages to question the attendant and eventually gets a beat on where Sam went after he left. They follow the trail later into the night and Sam suddenly finds a road familiar, the two heading down it to a house with a security camera pointing toward the street out front.

Finding that someone broke in, apparently after cutting the alarm, they head in to find the place has been tore up for the floor up as well as a dead man being left out on the floor. Sam says, with horror, that he did this but Dean refutes this. When Sam spies a door, he asks Dean for his lockpick and they find a cache of weapons and other gear: the man in question is a hunter. Spying another security camera, Dean and Sam check out the footage and find Sam fighting the man in the room they found him in and eventually killing him with a knife.

Sam, naturally, is horrified. While Dean tries to clean up the scene, Sam is despondent. He's found a letter that was written to the hunter from his daughter. The man was named Steve Windell and, as you'd expect from Sam, he's horrified. Dean responds to Sam's inability (or unwillingness) to erase the footage from the computer by smashing the CPU with his foot.

At the motel, Dean plans to just get some sleep and put this behind them. Sam isn't pleased with the idea and relates to Dean that he's been feeling terrible feelings over the last few weeks...anger, hatred, pain...and it's been getting worse over the last few weeks. It feels like, no matter what, Sam is becoming what the Yellow Eyed Demon wants him to be. He begs Dean to kill him and, we have an absolutely heartbreaking moment where Dean tells Sam that he'd rather die.

Sam, on the other hand, tells him that he'll live...and then picks up the gun and pistol whips Dean across the face and knocking him out cold.

After his unscheduled nap time, Dean is woken up by the motel owner who tells him that he's passed checkout time. After bribing him, Dean uses his computer to track down Sam and eventually tracks his cell to Duluth, Minnesota.

At a bar in Duluth, Jo Harvelle is closing up the bar she's working at when "Sam" arrives, much to her surprise. They talk for a bit, Jo pointing out that they didn't really part on the best of terms and noticing a mark on Sam's arm...that looks suspiciously like a symbol. "Sam" feeds her some lines about John having been obsessed with hunting, but that he isn't like that. When asked about Dean, "Sam" begins to needle Jo about her very obvious crush on him. "Sam" tells Jo he cares for her, even grabbing her hand...which she doesn't take well to and then he grabs her just before she attempts to hit him over the head with a beer bottle.

"Sam" then knocks her out on the bar, telling her that it didn't have to be this way...or maybe it did.

Does this bug you? I'm not touching you...

When Jo awakens, "Sam" has tied her up and has put a song on the jukebox. He taunts her about her father's death, telling her the "real" story. John screwing up didn't get Bill killed...John killed Bill out of mercy due to how severe his wounds were. "Sam" then tells Jo that she's bait and, when Dean busts in, his entire demeanor changes as he tries to insist that Dean has to kill him now. Dean turns, apparently giving up. When "Sam" approaches, Dean turns and empties a flask of holy water on him, "Sam" revealing demonic black eyes.

Ah, good ol' possession!

The demon flees, Dean going after him through a window after untying Jo. In a warehouse, Dean and the demon speak to one another from the shadows as they play cat and mouse with one another. The demon tells Dean that he wanted to see if he could push him far enough to waste Sam, mocking him for not being able to do so. The demon declares his intention to murder every hunter it he can find, using Sam to do so.

The fight finally comes to a climax on the dock, the demon shooting Dean and letting him fall into the water below.

After the commercial break, Jo comes looking for Dean, calling his cellphone to get his ringtone to play so that she can find him. When she does so, he's not in good shape and so she takes him back to get patched up. Jo proves to be a hell of a medic, getting the bullet out and cleaning up the wound. Jo asks Dean is demons ever tell the truth, which Dean confirms that they can, especially if they know it can mess with your head. Dean tells her that "Sam" has been tracking down and killing hunters, and the nearest one he knows is in South Dakota.

Jo wants to come along, but Dean refuses to have her blood on his hands. She gives him some meds to help with the pain and he thanks her, telling her that he'll call her later.

After he's gone, Jo softly responds, "No, you won't."

We'll come back to this.

In South Dakota, Sam cuts the phone line at Bobby's and heads for the front door. Bobby is, of course, happy to see him and invites him in seemingly with a cheerful attitude. The two share a beer...and Sam's mouth suddenly starts to smoke. Bobby puts some holy water in the beer, telling the demon "don't try to con a con man".

Did I mention I love Bobby? Because I do. He's awesome.

Tell me, Clarice. . .have the lambs stopped screaming?

When the demon gets nice and conscious again, they've put it under a Devil's Trap and tied to a chair not unlike a certain demon who had been there before...

Bobby begins the exorcism...but nothing happens. When Dean tries to tell the Demon that they're not getting Sam, the demon laughs in his face and tells him that he doesn't care about the Master Plan or anything the Yellow-Eyed Demon is doing. This is revenge, pure and simple. Bobby recognizes the mark on Sam's arm, a binding mark to keep a demon in, but doesn't know what to do. With a bit of Latin, the demon is apparently able to cause the fire in the fireplace to rise and even crack the roof to destroy the Devil's Trap.

The demon tosses Dean and Bobby aside and begins to lay into Dean in particular, telling him about Hell and how people use the word but really have no idea about what it means. A prison of fire and ash and blood and pain and fear...and Dean sent him back there. Dean realizes that it's Meg, or rather the demon that had been possessing Meg. Meg tells him that John is indeed down there, and that the only thing that has kept her going is the notion that she could come back and torture Dean. Meg taunts Dean, telling him that he couldn't save John and that he's not going to be able to save Sam.

Bobby gets the last word, putting a red hot poker against Sam's arm, destroying the link. Meg flees as black smoke, Sam apparently having no memory of what happened, but Dean giving him a punch across the face anyway.

To be fair, he's had quite the day.

Bobby later tells the boys about the death of Steve Windell, and asks them if they know anything about that. While Sam tries to protest, Dean says no and Bobby suggests that they keep it that way - Steve has some friends who won't listen to reason. Before the boys head out, Bobby gives them anti-possession talismans.

In the car on the way back, Sam tells Dean that he may still have to kill him. This time it was a demon, but next time it might not be. Dean reiterates John's last words: that if he'd only have to kill Sam if he couldn't save him, and Dean insists that he'll save Sam if it's the last thing he does. We end the episode on Dean teasing Sam for having a girl inside of him for like a week, the pair laughing as we close out the episode.

I can still hear the fangirls squeeing...

Born Under a Bad Sign is a pretty much unrelentingly dark episode of the show. Giving credit where it's due, walking into this blind, the tension is really high as you think that Sam might be going full dark side by this point and are unsure of where it's going to go. We have some very good cases for the Psychic Kids going dark side, after all. We have Max from Nightmare, Andy's brother from Simon Said, and even the electricity guy from Hunted seemed to be heading down that pathway one way or another before Gordon killed him.

However, Dean remains committed to protecting Sam and helping him to avoid his perceived fate. I'm certain that this attitude will in no way come back to bite him in the episodes to come. Still, his attitude is commendable, even if it is potentially a worrisome risk for the brothers.

Next time, we're entering a far more light-hearted episode than this one. The boys call in Bobby for help on an...odd case. Possibly the oddest case they've had so far. Maybe Bobby will be able to help them out, if they can get their story straight! Next time, Bobby will have to hear some Tall Tales.

Be there!