From MadCap's Couch - Supernatural: "Mystery Spot"

"Well, it's Tuesday... again..."

Following on from last time, the boys had the Colt stolen from them by Bela... and now, for something completely different.

Recap aside, we begin with Sam waking up to Asia's "Heat of the Moment". When Dean teases him about it, Sam says that if he ever hears it again, he's going to kill himself. Dean responds by cranking the volume. After a bit of prep, the pair leave to go get breakfast and we get a scene that we'll be seeing a lot of in this episode... the interior of a diner. As the boys contemplate breakfast, they mention that they're still hunting Bela and Sam has found a job in the meantime - a Professor Hasselback has turned up missing after passing through town to investigate the county Mystery Spot. A place, as a handy pamphlet Sam provides, is "where the laws of physics have no meaning".

The waitress at the diner drops a bottle of hot sauce.

Dean is skeptical about the Mystery Spot being a legitimate thing, but Sam notes some of the lore and convinces him to go look that night. They break in, and after dealing with a wall that looks like it's from one of the comic-esque scenes in Creepshow, the boys search and find nothing... and then the owner of the place accidentally blasts Dean in the chest with a shotgun. Sam tells the man to go get help and he holds Dean in his arms as Dean... dies.

Dean Winchester is dead.

"Sammy! Pull my finger!"

The opening title card is shown... and then Sam wakes up to Asia's "Heat of the Moment". Sam finds it all very strange as the events of them prepping to leave and indeed them even appearing at the diner seem to repeat just as they did before. Indeed, the shot at the diner goes by exactly as it did before, just with Sam being mystified as they walk through. Sam tells Dean that he seems to be experiencing the same thing over and over and over again (Sam insisting that it isn't déjà vu), emphasizing this by catching the hot sauce bottle when the waitress drops it.

Dean thinks it's a little crazy, trying to chalk it up to Sam's psychic visions. Sam denies this. As the two walk down the street, two deliverymen argue over how to move a piano. Sam needles Dean further and suggests that they go ahead and go to the Mystery Spot now rather than wait until closing. When Dean agrees, he starts to cross the street... and gets hit by a car driven by an old man from the diner. Once more, Dean dies... and Sam wakes up... and Asia is playing... and it's Tuesday.

Once more, Dean shows skepticism toward what is happening until Sam repeats to him something he said before and then catches the hot sauce bottle again. Sam admits to Dean that he saw him die, twice now, and that gets Dean to agree to help him figure it out. Sam saves Dean from getting run over in the road and Dean attempts to try to find the humor by asking if how he got hit by the car looked cool... only to have Sam bring up bladder control issues he had.

They head to the Mystery Spot, posing as journalists, and speak to the owner... who is absolutely unhelpful and trying to shill for his tour. When he brings up Professor Hasselback, the owner becomes worried to the point of breaking down and admitting (to a very vengeful Sam) that he bought the place on foreclosure and knows nothing about any weird stuff going on. After they leave, Dean suggests that they simply go bunker down in the motel and wait for midnight. Planning to get a Chinese, Dean is suddenly crushed by the falling piano from earlier when it's dropped from the story above.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

Once more at the diner, Sam has once more explained things to Dean and they attempt to figure out what the cause of the Groundhog Day loop is. To break the loop, Dean tries to change his order at the diner to make the day different. When Dean digs in, he chokes on the sausage... and dies.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

Sam attempts to keep Dean in the motel... Dean slips and falls in the show.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

Sam and Dean order in for breakfast. Dean's tacos taste funny.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

Dean gets shocked by an electric razor.

Man, I hate hidden eye pictures.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

We then cut to Sam and Dean having gotten into the Mystery Spot. The owner is tied up and Sam is literally tearing apart the building with an axe. Dean intervenes... and blood splatters across the owner.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

At the diner, defeated once more, a jaded Sam has pickpocketed the keys off the old man, tells the waitress - Doris - to log more hours at the archery range, and then proceeds to tell Dean that he's just a little grumpy from living through every Tuesday ever. After Sam catches the hot sauce, he and Dean engage in some talking at the same time in a comedic version of something we've seen far more terrifying elsewhere, with Sam knowing everything that Dean is going to say.

Sam's seen enough to know what various people within the diner do... which makes me wonder how many variations he's been through that we didn't get to see. Spoiler alert: this is about the only failing of the episode. The boys head back down the street, Dean going to speak to a woman handing out missing person flyers. It seems that the Professor's daughter is asking after him... and Sam rushes off to go speak to her. Meanwhile, Dean becomes a meal for a dog.

Sam wakes up. And it's Tuesday.

At the diner, Sam with a bit more hope is looking through the net and finds that Professor Hasselback is known for debunking "supernatural spots" like the Mystery Spot. Dean finds it ironic that the guy spent so much time debunking mystery spots and then disappeared in one... almost like the man got his just desserts. As they leave, Sam notes that the patron at the diner who has had pancakes for 100 Tuesdays... suddenly has strawberry syrup leftover on his plate. Seeing the man leave, Sam affirms that he's going to stop him... and then... Sam wakes up...

And. It's. Tuesday.

Sam's rendition of A Streetcar Named Desire wasn't going over well.

Yeah, I'm not really clear on that one. It's the only reversal of time in the episode where Dean hasn't died. Bit odd.

At the diner for Tuesday 101, Sam waits until the man leaves and corners him, putting a wooden stake to his throat. The man insists he knows nothing... but Sam calls him out for what he is, a Trickster. After all, they've killed one of his kind before, or so they think until the man's face shifts to show Gabri-I MEAN, the Trickster! The Trickster tells Sam that the joke isn't on Dean, killing him over and over and over again, but on Sam... having to watch Dean die over and over and over again. Sam can't save Dean... unless he kills the Trickster. He agrees to let them out of the loop. They wake up tomorrow and it's Wednesday, he says. When Sam tries to kill him anyway, the Trickster snaps his fingers...

...and Sam wakes up, but the song has changed. "Back in Time" by Huey Lewis and the News. Sam is elated! It's Wednesday and this is the most beautiful song he's ever heard! Sam insists that they skip breakfast... and Dean agrees, but soon finds himself put up at gunpoint by a vagrant from the diner. As Sam is packing up inside, he hears a gunshot and goes out to find... Dean dying. Sam holds his brother, closing his eyes and waiting for the inevitable... but it never comes.

Sam doesn't wake up.

And it isn't Tuesday.

We cut ahead to six months later, hearing Bobby leaving several voice messages over a montage of Sam driving around, hunting various creatures and working to hunt down the Trickster in a full on web of connections via lines of string map. As the montage comes to an end, Bobby's newest message comes in... he's found the Trickster.

At the Mystery Spot, Bobby is preparing a ritual. He tells Sam that they need blood... and a lot of it, a gallon of fresh. Knowing this means that they'll need to kill a human being, Bobby assumed that Sam would stop there. They get into an argument, which Bobby ends by drawing a knife and handing it to Sam - telling him that he would rather kill him than an innocent. Bobby kneels down, waiting for the inevitable... and Sam stabs him in the back with the wooden stake. The body slumps onto the ground and there's a few moments where Sam begins to second guess himself... then the body vanishes and the trick is revealed.

The Trickster: Patron Saint of the Shit-Eating Grin

The Trickster mocks Sam for his absolutely insane self-destructive behavior. Sam breaks down, begging him to take them back to that Wednesday. The Trickster has been trying to teach Sam a lesson: nothing good comes out of the two of them trying to save each other, Sam and Dean. It has to end, or it's going to kill them both. Sam... has to let go.

But, he does set time back.

Sam wakes up... and it's Wednesday.

Dean's alive, and Sam gets up and embraces him. Dean asks him how many Tuesdays he had... and Sam tells him that he's had enough. As they pack up, Sam tells Dean that he had a really weird dream... and Dean, trying to lighten the mood asks "clowns or midgets?". Sam, though, looks back to the empty and messy bed in the motel... and turns the light out before he leaves.

Okay, first off, before I get into literally any other part of this review: the sheer effort by the cast, crew, and directors that had to be done for the repeats of the same scenes. It's absolutely mind boggling thinking about how many takes they must have done. That's the case for a lot of productions, pretty much any that do multiple takes, but the sheer number of them and the attention to detail is just astounding to contemplate. Kudos to literally everyone from the ground up!

So, for the episode itself, the Trickster is trying to teach Sam a lesson in a rather intense way. He's completely right, ironically enough: Sam and Dean's tendency to get borderline (and sometimes, literally) suicidal in order to save each other is just going to end in blood and pain. Also, a bit of his revenge for them attempting to murder him the last time that he showed up, which is fair enough under the circumstances. Still, it's interesting that the Trickster took the time to set this up for Sam... almost as if he knows something about the Winchester Brothers that we don't yet...

More on that much later.

That is the last time Dean buys a razor from Skaro.

While the last episode got to see Jensen Ackles running solo against himself, here we get to see more shades of Sam as he gets beaten down, then raised up again, only to get beaten down and go dark much like Ruby said he'd have to back in Malleus Maleficarum. Here, we see Sam on his own, completely cutting himself off from the few connections he has (in this case, Bobby) and basically becoming a weapon. While the montage does a lot of telling rather than showing, we have the scene with "Bobby" in the Mystery Spot that shows just how far off the reservation Sam has gone and how much further he might have been willing to go. But this is the hunter that Ruby wanted - someone cold, merciless, and without reservation. It makes it kind of odd that Ruby didn't show up in this episode, although that likely would have bogged things down even further.

It does make me think that a What If? scenario might be in the cards for this... but that's a question for another day.

As you can tell, the episode is largely comedic before that dark turn, and the comedy works insanely well all across the body. Again, as I mentioned earlier, one of the few failings of the episode is that it doesn't show enough. Sam clearly went through more Tuesdays than we actually saw, and there's some information about other members of the town that he relays to Dean that I wish we could learn the variations of how Sam ended up learning all of those things. In the end, however, it isn't necessary for the episode to be good. And Mystery Spot is definitely a good episode.

Next time, we leave the comedy behind for the dark. Bela will be popping back in for a quickie, Ruby will come back, so will a formerly outfoxed Agent Henrikson, and we will finally get our first look at Season 3's Big Bad.

Be there, as we learn Jus in Bello!