Review

The Winchester Bros are in Brower County investigating a "mystery spot" after the disappearance of an online journalist who debunks scams, guess he hadn't got to Amityville yet. Anyways they decide to check out the "Mystery Spot" attraction, wonder where they got the name from, at night and see if anything paranormal is going down. In the course of checking out what is clearly a shilling of the rubes setup the owner surprises the Bros and shots Dean, who shockingly dies from the gunshot. Sam wakes up, and shockingly the same song by Asia is playing on the radio that was playing the previous morning, and to make things more bizarre Dean is alive and hallow, Sam has entered his own personal groundhog day.

Sam endures Dean's death on the same Tuesday over and over again and is unable to save his brother regardless of what lengths he goes to too avoid deadly situations. Clearly there's a paranormal element involved but Sam can't determine what it is. When he finds out things go to hell in a hand basket and our emo boy is on a revenge kick, hunting a god like entity we have encountered before. Dean cut short before the end of the season, oh hell no! Let's pass Sam the salt shot and check out a surprisingly satisfying episode.

There's a degree of satisfaction with this episode that comes from perhaps the Writers being pushed to do something different and quick in the face of the strike that was bearing down on the show with unnerving destruction in its veins. In a well written strategy the episode goes from deep sorrow at the early lost of a major character, through a solid amount of black humour as Dean experiences every possible death the Writers can construct, to finally hitting a sort of third act where we learn that Sam doesn't really need any support from Ruby, he can be ruthless off his own bat without the conscious issues that plague him during the first two seasons.

Jared Padalecki really came into his own during this episode and delivered the command performance he has been hinting at for a couple of seasons now. Sam has to go from sheer overwhelming shock at Dean's first couple of death sessions, through a sort of wry acceptance that no matter what he does he isn't going to be able to save Dean but it's not all over baby blue, to finally a real shock as the calendar rolls over to the first Wednesday he has experienced in quite some time. Padalecki is all over the requirements and for mine delivers his best performance to date.

I was actually quite digging the death scenes and the ability of the Writers to twist the situation to the best dark humour I've seen on a television show for quite some time. For Dean Fans this episode must have been torture, but hey you deserve it for being a fanbois or the female equivalent. We begin with development toward the actual death scene, Dean being shot, Dean being run over, before we get quick sequences of simply another death idea, before having Sam just mentions the current count as the Tuesdays mount up. Its clever writing and avoids flogging a dead Dean to death, while getting the idea across. I guess there was also a determinate in the episode running time, and the third act being a requirement to further develop Sam's character. I was also amused by Sam mentioning his various attempts to destroy the Mystery Spot, up to but not including a nuclear option.

An episode that will twists the viewer as things take differing turns of the screw. A solid achievement from the Writers.

Without giving too much away, though I guess the quote above pretty much lets the cat out of the burlap suck, gee I suck, the episode also sees the return of one of the better loved antagonists from an earlier episode. The Winchesters thought they had finished his chocolate bar, but of course the audience knew better. Anyways hope it's a recurring role as who doesn't enjoy a character that dishes out punishment to those that deserve it. There's also the fact that Sam is being taught a lesson and being shown a weakness he doesn't want to recognise, effective stuff, and another grey adversary for the Bros that can't be simply written off as just another entity full of malice.

As eluded to previously in the review the final block of the episode, surprisingly a lot going on here, turns dark as Sam is shown to have a ruthless streak that puts Dean to shame. When it comes to Dean, Sam is prepared to drop any notion of a moral compass and sacrifice anyone to the Winchester team. It's a side of Sam's character we haven't seen before, perhaps the influence of Ruby, or perhaps the after effects of the demonic involvement Sam was dragged into as the Yellow Eyed Demon choose him to lead his hell born army. Be interesting to see how this side of Sam is developed through the rest of season three, will Dean hit the handbrake or will Sam continue on his path to single minded destruction of the supernatural elements?

One of the strengths of Mystery Spot is it makes you think long after the ending credits, the possibilities of where the Winchester Bros can go from here in the final five episodes are certainly worth savouring. Just when you thought the season might limp through due to that strike some dry powder is found to add extra fire power to the effect of the overriding plot arc.

Mystery Spot scored 2.97 million viewers in North America when first telecast, arresting a mid season slide and giving some confidence to the Producers heading into the final third of the season. Clearly there is a core audience who can be counted on for each episode, but equally there's a sizeable percentage of fair weather friends who are not true Supernatural fans. Troubling times, but also I would hasten to add offset by the Writer's strike hitting most television negatively in terms of weekly viewing figures.

Seems the recent trend is to keep the hits of mullet rock down to two tracks, who was the mental giant making this decision? They suck even more than I do, which is actually saying a lot. Besides "Heat of the Moment" by Asia, sorry Dean ain't nobody likes that song, driving Sam crazy Tuesday morning after Tuesday morning, we get Huey Lewis and the News belting out "Back In Time". Okay I'm just going to say this once; did someone get Rob Zombie to select the tracks for this episode?

Mystery Spot was an episode that kind of snuck up on me and caught me with my pants down. I was pretty much expecting one of the comic turns that Supernatural throws up from time to time, and then got blind sided with an episode that was simply drenched in meaning and offered a deep exploration of Sam's currently state of the nation. Excellent achievement and demonstrating that the season hasn't lost its surprise factor even with the Writer's strike blasting any conceptions of where individual episodes should lead the season. Recommended to those with some time in Winchester land, the overall themes definitely require knowledge of the mythology of Supernatural and the situation facing the Bros as they find there is no answers to their plight. I'm surprisingly heading into the final third of the season in a confident frame of mind after wondering if Bobby wasn't tuning up the motorbike for a shark jumping attempt.