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When a pompous internet-based journalist goes missing in some tourist-trap Mystery Spot, Our Intrepid Heroes have little choice but to investigate his disappearance and proceed to break into the place after hours to wave their little doohickeys around. Unfortunately for them, the situation deteriorates rapidly when the Spot's owner shows up with a shotgun, and Dean ends up taking a couple of rounds to the chest before dying in Anguished Sammy's arms.
And then Sam wakes up. And it's the same day all over again, because Darling Sammy's caught in some sort of time loop that keeps shoving him back to 7:30 in the morning on a neverending Tuesday in which Dean keeps dying and dying and dying some more, no matter what either of Our Dear Boys does trying to prevent it. Sam endures more than a hundred of these Tuesdays -- during which Dean walks into the path of an elderly driver, gets squished by falling desk like he's The Wicked Witch beneath Dorothy's farmhouse, chokes on a sausage ["Hee." -- Joe R], slips in the shower, munches down on a bad taco, electrocutes himself, inadvertently takes a Sammy-driven axe to the head, and elicits the chompy wrath of an irritated puppy, among other delightfully gruesome demises -- until the entity responsible for all of it slips up and accidentally reveals himself through his choice of super-sweet condiments. Yep, The Trickster from last season is back, and he decided to screw around with Sam's gargantuan cranium for a little while with all of this Groundhog Day stuff. When Sam threatens to poke The Trickster with a stick, however, the devilish villain agrees to call the whole prank off, and with a snap of his fingers, he sends Sam and Dean forward into Wednesday.
Or does he? Dean ends up dying again anyway, and apparently for real this time, thereby hurling poor Sam into this epic, months-long quest for vengeance, or whatever, but in the end, it turns out The Trickster never really stopped screwing with Sam in the first place. And after imparting A Very Important Lesson about The Dangers Of Obsession upon The Ginormotron, The Trickster snaps his fingers once more, and Darling Sammy wakes up on the real Wednesday, reunited with his never-dead brother. Mind fuck! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Rattle, Rattle THEN! Our Intrepid Heroes decided a very long time ago to kill some evil sons of bitches and raise a little hell, which was most certainly not very fun at all for the various demonic moppets and vampiric security guards and psychotic prison matrons and wily tricksters and elaborately tattooed genies they proceeded to encounter, but really quite delightful for members of the viewing audience, most especially for one audience member in particular. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" shrieks Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon, writhing about upon his overstuffed armchair with glee over the fabulous montage that just flew by. Unfortunately, in a moment of grief-stricken desperation, Dashing El Deano summoned Ona Grauer to a remote crossroads and offered his eternal soul in exchange for Gigantic Dead Sammy's life, and is only now realizing that he doesn't really want to go Hell at the end of the current season after all. Also, Samuel Fucking Colt fashioned The Fucking Gun That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't, with which Devious Action Sammy shot Jared Padalecki's girlfriend in the face before Annoying Posh Bela stole it. Meanwhile, Princess Sparkle begged for Dashing El Deano's assistance in preparing Darling Sammy to fight The War That Is About To Begin Any Second Now, We Promise!, despite the fact that The Ginormotron took out both an entire SWAT team and Whackjob Gordon quite easily on his own, thank you very much. And then?
Silence, Silence NOW! A gently slumbering Sam snaps open his eyes and bolts upright in bed when Asia's awful "Heat Of The Moment" abruptly screams from the clock radio right to his tremendous head. "Rise and shine, Sammy!" early bird El Deano bellows out, jocularly enough, as he finishes lacing up his boots on this week's motel room's other bed. "Dude," Sam blinks, vague disgust washing across his still-groggy face, "Asia?" "You love this song and you know it!" Dean insists despite all evidence to the contrary, including Sam grumbling, "If I ever hear it again, I'm gonna kill myself." "I wouldn't want to hold you to that statement, you darling little boy!" shrieks Raoul, and come on, Raoul. Knock it off with the spoilers. "Ooops! My bad! Do continue, you silly little man!" Thanks ever so. "My pleasure!" So, Dean gets a sly glint in his eye at Sam's reckless vow, and leans over to crank up the volume. "What? I can't hear you!" he teases, and as Sam allows him a light little chuckle, Dean, in all of his ridiculously cheesy glory, rocks out on his bed with a finger-pointing, head-bopping lip-synch to John Wetton's vocals before shimmying out of the frame. Dork.
Bathroom. It's flamingo-themed. Heh. Dean, with his head thrown back, engages in a marathon, sixteen-second-long gargling session while Sam bitchfaces over the bubblegum-flavored toothpaste Dean so obviously purchased for their mutual use. Hee. There follows a bit of business involving an oversized black lace bra Dean supposedly finds amongst Saint Sammy Of The Egregiously Celibate's belongings before Dean at last locates his trusty pearl-handled automatic, which he slides into the back waistband of his jeans so Our Intrepid Heroes can head out to...
...breakfast. Buh? They arm themselves to go to a diner at eight o'clock in the morning? Whatever, freaks. In any event, they enter the greasy spoon just as an old coot named Pickett pays his check, and the two cross behind a twentysomething bum at the counter as the waitress, "Doris," gently reminds this "Cal" person that he can't stay unless he orders something. Cal scrapes together 75 cents, penny by aggravating penny, and eventually orders a coffee. Meanwhile, the boys have taken a booth by the window from which Dean examines the towering specials board and enthuses, "Hey -- Tuesday! Pig 'N A Poke!" Sam hoists his eyebrows into the air at Dean's excessive exuberance and snorts, "You even know what that is?" Dean clearly doesn't, but no matter, for Doris has arrived with pen and pad in hand, so Dean orders the special with a side of bacon -- mmmm, bacon -- and a coffee. Sam opts for coffee and a short stack, and as Doris heads back to the kitchen, Dean suggests they drop their current assignment in favor of hunting down and eradicating Posh Bela once and for all. Sam counters with a couple of snotty remarks before getting to the business at hand: Seems a certain Dexter Hasselback vanished last week while cruising through town on his way to visit "The Broward County Mystery Spot." Dean tosses a skeptical eye at The Mystery Spot's promotional pamphlet just as Doris arrives with their caffeine. Unfortunately, she also arrives with a half-full bottle of hot sauce that she manages to bobble right off her tray, leaving it to shatter and splatter on the floor near Sam's feet. Doris's apologies are profuse, and she bellows for a clean-up just as we...
...leap forward to Our Intrepid Heroes' post-breakfast stroll down this tiny little burg's main drag. A yappy yet admirably restrained golden retriever snaps at their heels as the two amble past, completely ignoring the mangy cur in favor of deliberating the merits of the matter at hand, of which there are none. Well, according to Dean, at least. He dismisses The Broward County Mystery Spot as a tourist trap, but Sam hastens to disagree, noting that there are plenty of places around the world "where holes open up and swallow people," citing both The Bermuda Triangle and The Oregon Vortex, the first of which is complete bullshit and the second of which is yet another scam, so we'll be ignoring everything College Boy here has to say in favor of watching as a distracted blonde body-checks Lil' Stumpy as she passes the boys heading in the opposite direction. Dean offers her a quickly appraising side-eye while the distracted blonde mumbles a hasty apology and keeps moving; Sam natters on endlessly about magnetic fields and the space-time continuum and God alone knows what else, until the two pass a pair of movers struggling with an oversized desk at a storefront's door. "I told you it wouldn't fit," grouses the first mover. "Whaddya want, a Pulitzer?" the second sneers back, and I feel sorry that Raoul so heartlessly teased Darling Sammy earlier regarding the latter's extreme aversion to progressive rock of the early eighties, because I know I'm going to kill myself if I have to listen to that particularly ill-written exchange more than once this evening. "I wouldn't want to hold you to that statement, you silly little man!" Raoul rather predictably shrieks. Shut up, Raoul. "Well! I never!" And you never will if you don't stuff a sock in that gaping maw of yours right now. "Hmph!" So, where the hell was I? Oh, yes: Sam concludes his rambling bout of expository blather by asserting that they'll never prove anything pro or con if they don't check the tourist trap out for themselves, so Dean agrees that they'll break into the place that evening after it closes.
The Broward County Mystery Spot, later that evening. The camera peers down a hall painted with a gaudy, fluorescent-green-and-black Vertigo spiral as Our Dear Boys pick the lock at the far end to enter. Dean activates his flashlight while Sam whips out one of those EMF readers I feel like I haven't seen in years on this show, and they sidle past a skeptical horse's ass to poke around. No, seriously -- there's the back end of a stuffed horse sticking out of a wall with these gigantic question marks shouting out in rays around its tail, whatever the hell that's supposed to represent. So, in any event, Dean makes disparaging remarks regarding the furniture bolted to the room's ceiling while Sam passes his EMF over a plastic turkey on a tilted table nearby. There are no satisfying VREEEEORP! noises to be had, however, so Our Intrepid Heroes tiptoe further into the attraction until a panicky gentleman's voice calls out, "What the hell are you doing here?" The boys spin around to find an absolutely tragic white-and-gold paisley shirt leveling a double-barreled shotgun in their general direction. Well, it's actually The Spot's owner holding the shotgun, but I trust that you'll know what I mean when I tell you that shirt is wearing him, rather than the other way around. Yeesh. Sam and Dean take instant stock of the owner's dangerously volatile disposition and make appropriate passive and placating noises while moving to disarm themselves, but as Dean's slowly kneeling to place his automatic on the floor, the jumpy owner's trigger finger jerks, and Dean takes a loudly reporting round directly in his chest. DUN! Dean collapses onto his back, and Sam races to his brother's side, all the while yelling for the suddenly horrified owner to call 911. Deeply remorseful, The Spot's owner complies, leaving anguished Sam alone to gather Dean up in his arms and whisper, "No! No! Not like this!" Dean chokes and gurgles and chokes some more until Jensen Ackles goes all cross-eyed and "dies."
RAAAWWWR! "Heeeeeeeeeeeee!" shrieks Raoul, having himself a lengthy little giggle over The Untimely And Cross-Eyed Demise Of Dashing El Deano. "Oh, that was just precious!" Raoul, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sarcasm is such an ugly color on you. "Oh, but it was! Here -- let me try it! 'ACK! ACK! ACK! GLAAAAAAAH!'" Your death-drape over the arm of the chair is quite graceful and picturesque indeed, my scaly friend, and the crossed eyes certainly are a nice touch, but you really need to have that forked tongue of yours hanging out of your mouth as well. "[ulllalalaalllaaaaah]!" Perfect. "Thanks!"
"Heat of the moment! Telling you what your heart meant!" A gently slumbering Sam snaps open his eyes and bolts upright in bed. "Rise and shine, Sammy!" undead El Deano bellows as he finishes lacing up his boots. Sam simply sits there, stunned, and with mouth agape, so Dean picks up his cue for him, grinning, "Dude! Asia!" "You love this song and you know it," Dean continues, cranking up the volume on the crappy motel clock radio and rocking out on his bed with a finger-pointing, head-bopping lip-synch to the chorus before shimmying out of the frame. Sam squints in disbelief.
Flamingo-Themed Bathroom. Dean, with his head thrown back, engages in a marathon, ten-second-long gargling session -- this time with bubbles! -- while Sam hesitantly rinses his own mouth out, spits, and then just stands there staring at his brother with mightily furrowed brow. Dean eventually spits himself and, noticing Sam's apparent befuddlement, goes, "What?" Sam takes a moment to consider what might be happening at the moment, opts for the simplest explanation, and finally replies, "Man, I had a weird dream." "Yeah?" Dean asks, picking at his teeth with a thumbnail. "Clowns or midgets?" Probably both. Hee. Sam just shakes his shaggy mane around until we leap forward to...
...the diner. Pickett pays his bill, Cal orders coffee, and the boys take a booth by the window from which Dean enthuses, "Hey -- Tuesday! Pig 'N A Poke!" "It's Tuesday?" Sam splutters. "All day," Dean pretty much replies as Doris arrives with pen and pad in hand. Dean orders the special with a side of bacon and a coffee while Sam, increasingly freaked, stammers out that he's fine. Once Doris heads back to the kitchen, Dean attempts to suggest they drop their current assignment in favor of hunting down and eradicating Posh Bela once and for all, but dazed Darling Sammy's off in a world of his own, so Dean's forced to lean across the table and snap his fingers a couple of times to recapture Sam's attention. "You sure you feel okay?" Dean asks. Sam heaves a mighty sigh and frowns, "You don't remember all of this?" "Like it's happened before?" he continues. "You mean like déjà vu?" Dean guesses with a pleased and self-satisfied little smile on his face. "No, like it's really happened before," Sam counters. "Like...déjà vu?" Dean offers, not getting it. "Forget about déjà vu!" Sam impatiently flusters. "I'm asking you if it feels like we're living yesterday all over again!" Dean thinks for a very long moment, then begins, "Okay, how is that not dé...?" "Don't say it!" Sam interrupts, his hands flapping all over the place. Hee. Fortunately, Doris arrives at this very moment with Dean's caffeine. Unfortunately, she also arrives with a half-full bottle of hot sauce that she manages to bobble right off her tray...and into Sam's anticipatorily outstretched hand! "Thanks!" Doris grins, and she turns to head back behind the counter while Sam starts darting crazy eyes around the diner and gritting his teeth. "Nice reflexes!" Dean grins. Sam clenches.
As Our Intrepid Heroes stroll down this tiny little burg's main drag, post-breakfast, a yappy yet admirably restrained golden retriever snaps at their heels as the two amble past, with Sam focusing all of his disbelieving attention on the mangy cur before continuing to deliberate the matter at hand, which now happens to be his increasingly unhinged reaction to this unbelievably lengthy bout of déjà vu. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Dean shrugs. "Okay, look," Sam explains for what is obviously the tenth time, "yesterday was Tuesday, but today is Tuesday, too!" He's ranting a bit by the end of that, leading Dean to deadpan, "Good! You're totally balanced." "So you don't believe me?" Sam blurts as a distracted blonde body-checks Li'l Stumpy as she passes the boys heading in the opposite direction. Dean offers her a quickly appraising side-eye while the distracted blonde mumbles a hasty apology and keeps moving, as Sam gapes endlessly over how freakish his day has become. "I'm just saying it's crazy," Dean offers. "I mean, Even-For-Us crazy -- Dingo-Ate-My-Baby crazy." "Hey, maybe it was one of your psychic premonitions!" Dean supposes, making an entirely reasonable guess. Sam brushes that suggestion off immediately, claiming the entire experience has been far too "vivid" thus far, before verbally retracing their steps the day -- until the two pass that pair of movers struggling with an oversized desk at a storefront's door. "I told you it wouldn't fit," grouses the first mover. "Whaddya want, a Pulitzer?" the second sneers back. A better retort is all I'm asking for, guys, but I've seen this episode already, and I know that's certainly not in the offing, so fuck the both of you and shut up so I can listen to Darling Sammy realize it must be The Mystery Spot that's affecting his brain. Dean agrees that they'll break into the place that evening after it closes, but the very idea sends Sam into a wild-haired panic, and he bats at Dean repeatedly while insisting they hit The Spot now, during business hours, when it's good and crowded. Dean's all, "Fine! Whatever! We'll do it now!" and pulls The Dean Winchester Patented Bow-Legged Clompy Stomp Of Great Vengeance And Furious Anger right into oncoming traffic! "VIOLENCE!" roars Raoul, clapping his paws together with delight as a mint-green monster of a '70s sedan sends Li'l Stumpy flipping ass over end through the air until he finally crashes into the asphalt at the center of the intersection, beaten to a thoroughly bloody pulp. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Old Coot Pickett, who's naturally at the sedan's wheel, Alzheimers what I'm certain is meant to be his dismay over this unfortunate sequence of events while Sam howls over to scoop his brother up in his arms and shake Dean awake, because everyone knows that stabilizing a blunt-force trauma victim's spinal column is for pussies. For his part, Dean just flops around, dead. "'ACK! ACK! GLAAAAAAAH!'" Nice of you to include the tongue this time, Raoul. And are we enjoying ourselves over there on our overstuffed armchair? "We are!" Excellent.
"Heat of the moment!" Sam snaps open his eyes and bolts upright in bed. "Telling you what your heart meant!" "Rise and shine, Sammy!" Dean bellows.
Bathroom. Gargling. Sammy hyperventilates.
Diner. "Hey -- Tuesday! Pig 'N A Poke!" "Okay, would you listen to me, Dean?" ultra-paranoid Sam whispers across the table. "Because I am flipping out!" Doris arrives with pen and pad in hand. "He'll take the special, side of bacon, coffee -- black -- and nothing for me, thanks!" Sam rattles off, rather rudely from Doris's perspective, but she heads back to the kitchen anyway, and Dean leans back in his seat to grin, "Sammy! I get all tingly when you take control like that!" "Quit screwing around!" Sam hisses, rubbing at his temples while explaining for what is obviously the tenth time that he's convinced he's caught up in some sort of bizarre time loop. Clearly believing Sam's gone completely around the bend this time, Dean nods, "Like Groundhog Day." "Exactly!" Sam overexcitedly agrees. Dean's all, "Riiiiiiiiight," before offering, "It's just that it's a little crazy -- I mean, Even-For-Us crazy..." "Dingo-Ate-My-Baby crazy?" Sam snaps, correctly anticipating the line. Dean freaks, finally about to get it. Unfortunately, Doris arrives at this very moment with Dean's caffeine. Fortunately, she also arrives with a half-full bottle of hot sauce that she manages to bobble right off her tray into Sam's anticipatorily outstretched hand. "Nice reflexes?" Dean eyebrows. "No, I knew it was going to happen!" Sam glares. Dean attempts to suggest that there might be another explanation for what's going on, but Sam's not having it at all. "You just have to go with me on this," he insists, increasingly frantic and contorting himself into various anguished shapes right there in the diner's booth before he finally just blurts the truth of the entire situation out: "You die today! Twice now, I've watched you die, and I can't...I won't do it again, okay?" Dashing El Deano's opposition collapses under the weight of this onslaught of emotion and tortured hair, and he agrees to go along with it all, even though he still thinks Darling Sammy is bonkers.
That yappy yet admirably restrained golden retriever snaps at Our Intrepid Heroes' heels, the distracted blonde body-checks Li'l Stumpy, and those fuckwits with the fucking desk unleash that stupid fucking Pulitzer line again while Darling Sammy completely spazzes out about The Mystery Spot and magnetic fields and the space-time continuum and God alone knows what else, until Dean agrees that they'll break into the place that evening after it closes, but the very idea sends Sam into a wild-haired panic, and he bats at Dean repeatedly until he finally forces himself to get a goddamned grip already. Dean realizes their after-hours trip to The Spot resulted in at least one of his deaths, so he's all, "Okay, let's go now," and would clompy-stomp right into oncoming traffic were it not for The Ginormotron's mighty lunge forward to haul his imperiled brother out of the intersection. Old Coot Pickett, once again at the sedan's wheel, Alzheimers what I'm certain is meant to be his angered impatience with Dean's apparent stupidity as he barrels merrily on his way. Dean chuckles, until he gets a look at Sam's ashen expression. "Wait -- did he...?" "Yesterday," Sam confirms. Dean mulls that over for a moment before grinning, "Did it look cool, like in the movies?" Heh. Sam, who's thisclose to beating Dean to death himself at this point, bitchfaces, "You peed yourself." Dean's grin falters at that bit of unwelcome news, but he pulls himself upright to offer this rousing defense: "Of course I peed myself! A man gets hit by a car, you think he has full control of his bladder? Come on!" He then carefully looks both right and left before crossing the street. Hee!
The Mystery Spot. Our Intrepid Heroes, masquerading as journalists, interview The Spot's owner, "Mr. Carpiak," who throws them line after line of spooky-sounding promotional bullshit until Unhinged Action Sammy orders him to cut the crap, and Carpiak finally admits he's merely a simple huckster who bought the joint at a foreclosure auction last March. And no, he's never seen Dexter Hasselback in his life -- they can ask the police if they don't believe him, 'cause the cops have already scoured every inch of the place and found absolutely zip. Dean, satisfied with Carpiak's answers, pushes a still-recalcitrant Sam towards the exit and into...
..."Dog," Sam nods as if to cue the mangy cur's yapping as they pass the admirably restrained thing while strolling down the main drag. Sam also correctly anticipates Pickett searching for his keys in the middle of the sidewalk and the distracted blonde body-checking Li'l Stumpy before Dean breaks the established pattern by chasing after the blonde to ask her a few questions, and it turns out she's Derek Hasselback's daughter, there searching for her father. Super-Smart Sammy makes "D'OH! I AM SO STUPID" faces and hustles over to her side for further interrogation, leaving Dean alone to the yappy yet admirably restrained cur. "Hey, buddy!" Dean grins. "Somebody need a friend?" Dean ducks down out of the frame for a cuddle, the off-screen mongrel goes apeshit with the barking, and...
"Heat of the moment!" Ha! God help me, that was far funnier than it had any right to be, especially because they made us wait so goddamned long for the golden retriever in the first act to go off in the third. "Plus!" Raoul needlessly reminds me. "There was absolutely no GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE to speak of!" Yes, yes, I know: Those heartless little miscreants, am I right? "You are!" Good. In any event, Sam snaps open his eyes to dart out of the frame, and the thing we know, he's back at the diner, sharing his scraped-together-across-multiple-Tuesdays research on Derek Hasselback, who turns out to have been a monstrously egotistical dicksmack of a "journalist" who styled himself "The Truth Warrior," so just imagine any tool from FOX News, and you've got a pretty good picture of this guy. His specialty was, as Dean puts it, "crapping on" roadside tourist traps like The Mystery Spot, so Dean finds it "kind of poetic" that he ended up vanishing in one. "Like just deserts," he elaborates as they rise to leave. Sam repeats the phrase, but his massive brain quickly switches "deserts" to "desserts" when he notices a suspicious container of strawberry syrup to an abandoned plate on the diner's counter, and Super-Smart Sammy suddenly gets An Idea when he remembers that the usual occupant of that counter seat has always, always, always chosen maple syrup before.
"Heat of the moment!" Sam slowly sits up in bed, murder in his eyes. DUN!
Diner. The camera focuses on the supremely suspicious middle-aged syrup-switcher for a lengthy period of time, while Sam bores holes in the guy's back with a hostile glare until the gentleman in question rises to leave. Sam quickly follows with a paper bag filled with death and destruction, and a befuddled Dean chases after the two; out on the sidewalk, Sam slams the guy up against a fence, pressing the business end of a blood-encrusted stake against the guy's neck. Sam babbles on about the guy's M.O. -- "going after pompous jerks" to "give them their just deserts" -- and the guy babbles back at him for a bit, pleading for his life and such until he finally abandons the charade and morphs into last season's still-alive Trickster, much to Our Intrepid Heroes' shock and dismay. Richard Speight smarms something about his unlikely survival until all three of them get gobbled up by the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
By the way, I've been avoiding spoilers this entire season, and so would not have had the faintest clue that twist was coming had it not been for the appearance of the actor's name in the opening credits scroll following the title card, so you might choose to keep that little detail in mind the time you want to fake out the audience, Kripke. Just a suggestion.
Sidewalk. Aftermath. Sam seethes, Dean gapes, The Trickster gloats, and all you need to know is this: the time loop's not about killing Dean over and over and over again as some sort of twisted retribution for the events of last season, no matter how much enjoyment The Trickster's been receiving in doing so. No, the entire point of this exercise is to teach Darling Sammy a lesson. "How long will it take you to realize?" The Trickster smirks in Sam's face. "You can't save your brother, no matter what!" Dean looks deeply uncomfortable. Sam, on the other hand, looks psychotic, and is about to jam that stake through Richard Speight's neck when The Trickster offers a deal: If Sam lets him go, The Trickster will send both Winchesters forward into Wednesday, no harm, no foul. Sam considers this for all of a second before hissing, "Nah, it's easier to just kill you." "Can't have that!" The Trickster grins, and he snaps his fingers.
Huey Lewis And The News choad their way through "Back In Time" as Sam snaps open his eyes and bolts upright in bed. Dean, brushing his teeth at the sink, makes disparaging remarks regarding the station's choice in music this morning, but Sam's too overjoyed to discover they've finally reached Wednesday and declares Huey Lewis And The News to be The Best Band Ever!, so we know something's not quite right with Sam. The Ginormotron hastily pulls on a shirt while quizzing Dean about the day's events, but all Dean remembers is their run-in with The Trickster. That's good enough for Sam, who scrambles out of bed to sling all of their crap into duffel bags, because they're leaving town, pronto. "No breakfast?" Dean protests. Wah-wah-waaaaaah.
Impala. Dean's transferring supplies from Metallicar's bottomless trunk into a bag when Deadbeat Cal comes on little cat feet with a gun to relieve Dean of his wallet. Instead of, oh, handing it over immediately, Dim Dean decides to talk his way out of the situation, and the camera cuts back up to the room so we can get an earful of the expected gunshot with Sam. Down in the parking lot, Cal's scampering away while Dying Dim Dean bleeds out all over the asphalt, and... "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE" Oh, Raoul, really? "Whatever do you mean?! Is there not a delicious amount of tasty GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE on the television screen at this very moment!?" There's a delicious amount of something, all right, but clearly it's red-dyed Karo Syrup that's squirting out from Jensen Ackles's olive drab t-shirt at the moment. I mean, come on -- look at that! It's making a tiny little perfectly arched stream from what's clearly the business end of a hose they ran up beneath his clothes, for Christ's sake. "Oh, pooh! You simply have to ruin all of my fun, don't you!" Don't blame me, dude. I'm not the one who rigged that shit up. "Rats!"
And so, long story short, the Very Touching Moment when Darling Sammy races to Dead Dean's side to plead with whomever is listening that this wasn't supposed to happen today gets ruined by an errant blood bag, or whatever, and as the camera cranes up from the Pietà-like tableau in the parking lot below, your heartless recapper and his cold-blooded friend enter the CHOMP!-less commercial break entirely unmoved.
Aftermath, and are you ready for a montage? I said, ARE YOU READY FOR A MONTAGE? "Absolutely not! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" Sorry to lose you, Raoul, for yes, gentle reader, in the wake of Dim Dean's untimely and entirely preventable death, Darling Sammy With The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes slowly becomes Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy through the miracle of a few short scenes spliced quickly together beneath an explanatory voice-over, the last of which in this case takes the form of a series of voicemails from Bobby, who repeatedly tries and fails to reach Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy while offering congratulations on the trail of terror Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy's supposedly leaving in his wake as he tears through the night in the Impala, alone, over a three-month period. Demons in Death Valley? Dead! Vampires in Austin? Dead! Sammy's proper use of appropriate dining utensils? Dead! And we know how hard-ass he's become because we see him eating a grilled chicken breast! Alone! In a motel room! I know! Well, actually, we know how hard-ass he's become because he makes his bed. No, seriously. No. Seriously. I wish I were kidding with that, but I'm not. Also, and in what I have to admit is a nicely done effects sequence, Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy -- Now With Super-Special Pain Suppression! -- extracts a bullet from his heretofore remarkably healthy abdominals and stitches the wound up himself. It's delightfully gruesome, and I'm certain Raoul would have something complimentary to add, but he dropped into a coma as soon as this tedious montage sequence began, so let's get to the end of it already: Finally, and at long last, Bobby drops a final voicemail to announce he's located The Trickster, so Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy heads over to...
...The Broward County Mystery Spot? WHATEVER, SHOW. Oh, sorry! Sorry! My bad. Bobby, who's already chalked an intricate symbol on the floor of the place, explains that he uncovered a summoning ritual that'll work in any location known to have fallen under The Trickster's influence, or something like that, so that's why he summoned Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy back to Florida. One problem: this isn't really Bobby, and Sam knows it, and the audience knows it -- especially when Bobby insists that the summoning ritual requires a gallon of fresh human blood -- so let's skip ahead to the part where Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy drives that blood-encrusted stake of his into Faux Bobby's back, shall we? "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" I thought that would rouse you, my scaly friend. "You thought right!" You're not disappointed that it's simply yet another of The Trickster's illusions? "Not in the least! In fact, I'm thinking of hiring that darling man to handle the entertainment at my gala birthday soirée!" Oh, I do hope you'll invite me this time. "Consider it done!" Excellent.
So, Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy sticks Faux Bobby like a pig, and the tip of the stake ends up protruding from Faux Bobby's chest, and it's all so gratuitously disgusting that I get a little misty-eyed in appreciation, but in the end, as I've noted, it's simply yet another illusion The Trickster's concocted to teach Darling Sammy a lesson. Yeah, he tries to fake Darling Sammy out for a moment by leaving Faux Bobby's faux corpse on the ground just long enough for Sam to question his own sanity, but in the end, Faux Bobby shimmers out, and Richard Speight materializes to drill a lengthy lecture on The Dangers Of Obsession into -- as The Trickster puts it -- "that freakish Cro-Magnon skull" of Sam's. Hee. God, The Trickster's a bitch. And although I'm fond of his presence on the screen and look forward to his appearance on the show, let's get this over with: the boys, to absolutely no one's surprise by this point, represent each other's greatest weakness, and if they don't get their collective act together, fast, The Other Side will win The War That Is About To Begin Any Second Now, We Promise! Does Sam understand? Not really, but he reverted from Deluxe Dead-Eyed Deadly Action Sammy back to He Of The Super-Special Puppy-Dog Eyes about three seconds into Richard Speight's spiel, so The Trickster has little choice but to snap his fingers once more and...
...Huey Lewis And The News choad their way through "Back In Time" as Sam snaps open his eyes and bolts upright in bed. Dean, brushing his teeth at the sink, makes disparaging remarks regarding the station's choice in music this morning, but Sam's so overjoyed to discover Dean alive again that he leaps out of bed, takes one giant step to cross the entire length of the motel room's floor, and draws a startled Dean straight up into a tight and bone-crunching hug. Awwwww. "Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" Dean eyebrows over one of Sam's remarkably broad shoulders. "Enough," Sam whispers, looking wrecked. Sniff. Sam eventually pulls back to quiz Dean about the day's events, but all Dean remembers is their run-in with The Trickster. That's good enough for Sam, who informs Dean that they're leaving town, pronto, and that Dean is not to stray for one instant from Darling Sammy's sight until they're gone. Dean's understandably puzzled, but agrees to trust his brother on this one.
A short time later, Sam's zipping up his final bag as Dean heads over to the door. Something about Sam's relentlessly bleak demeanor makes him pause, however, and he asks, "Hey, you don't look so good -- something else happen?" "I just had a really weird dream," Sam LIES. "Clowns or midgets?" Dean jokes, trying to lighten the mood, even going so far as to offer Sam one of his dazzlingly cheerful smiles, but Traumatized Sammy and His Anguished Hair simply nod their collective head in response. Dean exits with Sam close behind, but The Sad Ginormotron takes one last moment to look around the motel room of his seemingly neverending despair, focusing in particular on his own unmade bed, before switching off the light and shutting the door on this episode for good.
week looks fantastic, as Our Intrepid Heroes are forced to team up with Special Agent Henriksen when That Thing rises in the west and amasses a horde of the demonically afflicted to take everyone out once and for all, Assault On Precinct 13-style. And don't forget that the evening begins with a repeat of the completely awesome "Nightshifter", so be sure to tune in at eight for the whole full-night experience. "It's going to be faaaaaaab-ulous, my pretties! Kisses!"