not in this diner, not today
Dear Supernatural,
Hi, I am in love with you. Let me count “ten” ways. (AHAHAHAno.)
AKA. Thirty-seven things that were awesome about ‘Mystery Spot’
1. Domestic scenes! Hi, domestic scenes! I have such a thing for pretty men doing laundry or brushing their teeth or lacing their manly boots (HI DEAN). It’s always so wonderful to see our Winchester boys doing some normal stuff in the downtime, especially when it’s so yay and companionable in a way we haven’t really seen for a while. Speaking as someone who used to brush her teeth with sibling accompaniment (albeit, when we were twenty years younger than Samandean are), HELL YES TO GARGLING.
2. DEAN. Just. In general. With his head-bopping and the gargling and his being in a good mood for once (a proper one, not his ‘cheeky chappie’ shtick, yknow? Say what you will about last week’s episode (I, for one, rather liked it), it’s stomped on a couple of psychological demons). DEAN, YOU ARE A DORK.
3. Pig ‘n a poke. 40 minutes of pig ‘n a poke, and I still have no idea what that means. (AND NOR DOES DEAN.)
4. What a lovely, unglamorous waitress this diner has been gifted with. I want her to give me hot sauce.
[my mum has just put on Blur’s Song no2. Thanks, mum.]
5. ZANY CORRIDOR. ZANY MUSIC. IT’S LIKE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS HAVE NO MEANING. And Dean so unimpressed by it all.
[and now it’s the Prodigy. Double thanks.]
6. EMF METER. HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU, BABY.
7. That first death took me so entirely by surprise, even knowing it was going to happen. It was just so sudden and stupid, and then his grunting and choking and his hand in Sam’s coat, and even as he’s dying he just can’t tear his eyes away from his brother. Oh Dean. TPTB do like to give us good deaths, don’t they? And by good deaths, I mean ‘tear my heart out and stamp on it and they don’t even get last words DDD:’
8. CLOWNS OR MIDGETS. How much do I love that Sam’s problems with clowns and midgets are not only a maintained canon, but are presumably so obvious EVEN DEAN KNOWS ABOUT THEM. (Well, he already knew about the clown thing, obviously, what with all his teasing Sam about it back in the day. But I like to think Sam has clown/midget nightmares on a semi-regular basis.)
9. Can I just say, I really enjoy the way Dean says ‘Bela’. There’s something about it.
[hi, Queen. I think my mum’s on a loud music kick or something.]
10. The whole damn déjà vu conversation had me loling. HEY SAM, D’YOU THINK IT’S DEJA VU? Jared does time-loop confusion so well- you can actually see him twitching- (hell, Jared does the whole damn thing so well. Colour me impressed, Padalecki), and then Jensen does the slightly-bewildered big brother thing, and less than ten minutes in I’m completely and hopelessly in love with this show all over again.
11. YESTERDAY WAS TUESDAY, RIGHT, BUT TODAY IS TUESDAY TOO.
YEAH, NO, GOOD, YOU’RE... TOTALLY BALANCED.
(11b. DINGO ATE MY BABY CRAZY.)
(11c. This is the second time in a row Sam’s psychicness has been brought up again. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?)
12. All the minor time-loopy characters in this episode are so wonderful. Supernatural does tend to do good five-second characters, but these are the first in a while that have had me going YAY. (eg. Angry furniture movers: ‘I told you it wouldn’t fit’, ‘What do you want, a Pulitzer?’)
13. Death number two. HOLY SHIT. Boy didn’t even have time to close his eyes. And that next morning is when we begin to see Sam losing his miiiind. I’m not sure why I love the shot of him just staring at Dean’s gargling, looking kind of like he’s on the verge of hyperventilating, but I do.
14. SAMMY, I GET ALL TINGLY WHEN YOU TAKE CONTROL LIKE THAT. Please excuse me whilst I put my wincest hat on.
15. Dean is just such a big brother in this episode. In, again, a way we’ve not seen so much for a while. He thinks Sam’s going a bit crazy, yes, but he’s still listening to him and- if not entirely sure how to solve the problem- he’s trying to keep Sam calm all the same. All Sam has to say is say please, and he’ll figure it out somehow.
[Mum is dancing. Why oh god why.]
16. “You peed yourself.”
“Of course I peed myself. A man gets hit by a car, you think he has full control of his bladder? Come on.”
17. I love that all it takes is two days of time-looping for Sam to start physically intimidating rodenty little men. Sammy, you badass.
18. Death number three. I am a bad, bad person who cracked the fuck up. Sam’s face, oh my god. It’s like he lost a shoe all over again!
19. The longer Sam’s trapped in time, the sadder his hair seems to get. And the sadder Sam’s hair gets, the more gently Dean treats him/it. Yesterday, it was all shiny and filled with anger, and Dean focuses on calming it down; today, it’s floppy and forlorn , and Dean reassures it with his brotherly words. What a good big brother you are to Sam’s hair, Dean.
(19b. “If you and I decide I’m not gonna die, I’m not gonna die.” Unsubtle, but I love it anyway.)
20. Who knew Dean dying could be so funny?
21. Sam killed his own brother. In a funny way, admittedly, but still. HE KILLED DEAN. Oh, Sam.
Hell, that whole scene is... kind of unhappier than it’s set up to be. On the one hand, Sam destroying private property with an axe whilst Dean acts like it’s a normal day at the office- that can only be funny, really. But on the other hand, Sam- the nice guy, supposedly- has tied a guy up and is literally ripping apart his livelihood, whilst Dean just sits back and has a chat because it’s Sammy, and if Sammy wants to take an axe to an upside-down table then by God Sammy shall! Things like that make me think that if Sam went darkside, Dean would be right there with him. This pleases me.
22. I’m really wondering how exactly Doris ended up shooting Dean. Did they actually go to the archery range? Discuss.
23. Sam Winchester cries his way through sex. WHICH DEAN KNOWS ALL ABOUT, OBVIOUSLY.
24. See, again, Sam’s typically meant to be the ‘nice one’, but it’s Dean who thinks to actually, you know, connect with another human being, and thus provide a vital key to solving the mystery. Okay, after 100 Tuesdays you might get a bit wrapped up in yourself, but even at the start, that wasn’t something Sam ever thought to do. Sammy, you are so fucked up. How did you ever think you could live a normal life? (How did you ever score with a girl as hot as Jess?)
25. DEAN LOVES ANIMALS, FACT. But, er... animals don’t love him. Ow.
(Um, can I just say. Strawberry syrup. Pancakes. Breakfast. Americans are weird.)
26. HI, SAM AND YOUR INCREDIBLY INTENSE FACE. I could watch that bit where he sits up and looks around post-syrup revelation all night long.
27. And hello Sam-the-badass. Eat your breakfast, indeed. Never again shall I be able to read sub!Sam after this episode. (And Dean’s just like ‘yeah, okay, I shall eat’ like Sam ordering him around is entirely the norm. Which, you know, IT SO IS. *WINCEST HAT*)
28. I really, really wasn’t sure whether the dude was a trickster or not. And I was pretty sure that Sam would kill him anyway, at this stage in the game. Which, hi, badass-Sam. -And, again, Dean is pretty much just stood there watching his brother threaten a guy’s life, even though he doesn’t know what’s going on either. Because it’s Sam. Our Demon Jesus.
29. I LOVE THE TRICKSTER SO FUCKING MUCH. I DON’T CARE THAT I DON’T QUITE KNOW WHAT HIS ‘TEACH SAM A REALLY NASTY LESSON’ MOTIVES ARE, HE’S JUST THAT AWESOME. I love the way he smiles and the way he casually insults them and the way he’s so entirely unfazed by the potentially-murderous stake jabbing into his neck. Also, I love the way his whole shoulder is basically the size of one of Sam’s hands. Hi, Sam.
30. “Are you kidding? This isn’t the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard?”
31. And right about now is where the episode took a turn I entirely and completely was not expecting in a million years. YEAH, I CRIED. And I loved it. I also love that not one of the deaths in this episode (in this whole damn series, hello) is sentimental. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking or sad or whatever, but there are no last words or touching final moments. Instead, it’s brutal and unpleasant and real.
32. “I’m supposed to wake up”. Hello, my broken heart.
33. Montages are never going to not be cheesy, but HI HI HI BROKEN, BADASS SAM WHO MOVES LIKE A ROBOT AND REMOVES HIS OWN BULLETS WITHOUT EVEN FLINCHING AND NEVER BLINKS AND HOLDS HIS FORKS LIKE HE HATES THEM AND HAS A GUN-CLEANING KIT AND OBSESSIVELY STRAIGHTENED RIGHT-ANGLES AND STILL HAS A PINK TOOTHBRUSH.
33b. How much do I love that a Sam without his Dean is a John without his wife? Except even worse than John. So much worse, because, sure, John had a freaky-obsessive case for his weaponry and a love of highly detailed walls, but he also smiled and laughed and got angry and probably he flinched when he removed his bullets. (You’ve gotta wonder, was the John mimicry a conscious decision on Sam’s part, or is it a family trait, or were they just raised to make their beds under times of stress?)
33c. The AHBL2 parallels are running amok throughout (hell, initially I thought badass-Sam in the car was driving to a crossroads), and I love and embrace them. They’ve both given up their souls, their lives, for each other now. Sam just took a more metaphorical route.
34. I WAS SO ENGROSSED IN THE NOT!BOBBY- SAM SCENE, I DIDN’T ACTUALLY NOTICE THEY WERE BACK AT THE MYSTERY SPOT UNTIL THE SECOND VIEWING. NOT EVEN THE UPSIDE-DOWN TABLES GAVE THE GAME AWAY.
35. I’m not sure whether or not Sam came to the conversation expecting Bobby to be the trickster, but I’m going to go with ‘not’, just so I can think that he really was about to go and find someone to bleed dry for his brother. (Hi hi, evil Sam.)
36. “Whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object.” THANK YOU, SHOW. THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT.
36b. “Nothing good comes out of it; just blood, and pain.” So now I’m wondering what the trickster knows. ‘Cause that’s the kind of statement of someone who knows what’s gonna happen. If tricksters can fuck around with time so much, I bet they can see the future. Hell, maybe this dude’s already been there.
36c. SAM, YOUR FACE. Not even a God-type can resist THAT FACE.
37. THAT HUG. OH MY GOD, THAT HUG. I NEEDED THAT LIKE I NEED BREATHING.
37b. !!!!!!!!!!!
So. What does this all mean for Sam? 100+ days of verging-on-insanity plus at least three months of emotional-deaditude and a lack of Dean. There’s gotta be psychological ramifications for that shit. I don’t know if we’ll be seeing any next episode, seeing as that one was originally going to come before Mystery Spot, but... maybe in the next ones? I really hope so. Because badass-broken-Sam is disturbingly hot. And incestuous.
Hi, I am in love with you. Let me count “ten” ways. (AHAHAHAno.)
AKA. Thirty-seven things that were awesome about ‘Mystery Spot’
1. Domestic scenes! Hi, domestic scenes! I have such a thing for pretty men doing laundry or brushing their teeth or lacing their manly boots (HI DEAN). It’s always so wonderful to see our Winchester boys doing some normal stuff in the downtime, especially when it’s so yay and companionable in a way we haven’t really seen for a while. Speaking as someone who used to brush her teeth with sibling accompaniment (albeit, when we were twenty years younger than Samandean are), HELL YES TO GARGLING.
2. DEAN. Just. In general. With his head-bopping and the gargling and his being in a good mood for once (a proper one, not his ‘cheeky chappie’ shtick, yknow? Say what you will about last week’s episode (I, for one, rather liked it), it’s stomped on a couple of psychological demons). DEAN, YOU ARE A DORK.
3. Pig ‘n a poke. 40 minutes of pig ‘n a poke, and I still have no idea what that means. (AND NOR DOES DEAN.)
4. What a lovely, unglamorous waitress this diner has been gifted with. I want her to give me hot sauce.
[my mum has just put on Blur’s Song no2. Thanks, mum.]
5. ZANY CORRIDOR. ZANY MUSIC. IT’S LIKE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS HAVE NO MEANING. And Dean so unimpressed by it all.
[and now it’s the Prodigy. Double thanks.]
6. EMF METER. HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU, BABY.
7. That first death took me so entirely by surprise, even knowing it was going to happen. It was just so sudden and stupid, and then his grunting and choking and his hand in Sam’s coat, and even as he’s dying he just can’t tear his eyes away from his brother. Oh Dean. TPTB do like to give us good deaths, don’t they? And by good deaths, I mean ‘tear my heart out and stamp on it and they don’t even get last words DDD:’
8. CLOWNS OR MIDGETS. How much do I love that Sam’s problems with clowns and midgets are not only a maintained canon, but are presumably so obvious EVEN DEAN KNOWS ABOUT THEM. (Well, he already knew about the clown thing, obviously, what with all his teasing Sam about it back in the day. But I like to think Sam has clown/midget nightmares on a semi-regular basis.)
9. Can I just say, I really enjoy the way Dean says ‘Bela’. There’s something about it.
[hi, Queen. I think my mum’s on a loud music kick or something.]
10. The whole damn déjà vu conversation had me loling. HEY SAM, D’YOU THINK IT’S DEJA VU? Jared does time-loop confusion so well- you can actually see him twitching- (hell, Jared does the whole damn thing so well. Colour me impressed, Padalecki), and then Jensen does the slightly-bewildered big brother thing, and less than ten minutes in I’m completely and hopelessly in love with this show all over again.
11. YESTERDAY WAS TUESDAY, RIGHT, BUT TODAY IS TUESDAY TOO.
YEAH, NO, GOOD, YOU’RE... TOTALLY BALANCED.
(11b. DINGO ATE MY BABY CRAZY.)
(11c. This is the second time in a row Sam’s psychicness has been brought up again. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?)
12. All the minor time-loopy characters in this episode are so wonderful. Supernatural does tend to do good five-second characters, but these are the first in a while that have had me going YAY. (eg. Angry furniture movers: ‘I told you it wouldn’t fit’, ‘What do you want, a Pulitzer?’)
13. Death number two. HOLY SHIT. Boy didn’t even have time to close his eyes. And that next morning is when we begin to see Sam losing his miiiind. I’m not sure why I love the shot of him just staring at Dean’s gargling, looking kind of like he’s on the verge of hyperventilating, but I do.
14. SAMMY, I GET ALL TINGLY WHEN YOU TAKE CONTROL LIKE THAT. Please excuse me whilst I put my wincest hat on.
15. Dean is just such a big brother in this episode. In, again, a way we’ve not seen so much for a while. He thinks Sam’s going a bit crazy, yes, but he’s still listening to him and- if not entirely sure how to solve the problem- he’s trying to keep Sam calm all the same. All Sam has to say is say please, and he’ll figure it out somehow.
[Mum is dancing. Why oh god why.]
16. “You peed yourself.”
“Of course I peed myself. A man gets hit by a car, you think he has full control of his bladder? Come on.”
17. I love that all it takes is two days of time-looping for Sam to start physically intimidating rodenty little men. Sammy, you badass.
18. Death number three. I am a bad, bad person who cracked the fuck up. Sam’s face, oh my god. It’s like he lost a shoe all over again!
19. The longer Sam’s trapped in time, the sadder his hair seems to get. And the sadder Sam’s hair gets, the more gently Dean treats him/it. Yesterday, it was all shiny and filled with anger, and Dean focuses on calming it down; today, it’s floppy and forlorn , and Dean reassures it with his brotherly words. What a good big brother you are to Sam’s hair, Dean.
(19b. “If you and I decide I’m not gonna die, I’m not gonna die.” Unsubtle, but I love it anyway.)
20. Who knew Dean dying could be so funny?
21. Sam killed his own brother. In a funny way, admittedly, but still. HE KILLED DEAN. Oh, Sam.
Hell, that whole scene is... kind of unhappier than it’s set up to be. On the one hand, Sam destroying private property with an axe whilst Dean acts like it’s a normal day at the office- that can only be funny, really. But on the other hand, Sam- the nice guy, supposedly- has tied a guy up and is literally ripping apart his livelihood, whilst Dean just sits back and has a chat because it’s Sammy, and if Sammy wants to take an axe to an upside-down table then by God Sammy shall! Things like that make me think that if Sam went darkside, Dean would be right there with him. This pleases me.
22. I’m really wondering how exactly Doris ended up shooting Dean. Did they actually go to the archery range? Discuss.
23. Sam Winchester cries his way through sex. WHICH DEAN KNOWS ALL ABOUT, OBVIOUSLY.
24. See, again, Sam’s typically meant to be the ‘nice one’, but it’s Dean who thinks to actually, you know, connect with another human being, and thus provide a vital key to solving the mystery. Okay, after 100 Tuesdays you might get a bit wrapped up in yourself, but even at the start, that wasn’t something Sam ever thought to do. Sammy, you are so fucked up. How did you ever think you could live a normal life? (How did you ever score with a girl as hot as Jess?)
25. DEAN LOVES ANIMALS, FACT. But, er... animals don’t love him. Ow.
(Um, can I just say. Strawberry syrup. Pancakes. Breakfast. Americans are weird.)
26. HI, SAM AND YOUR INCREDIBLY INTENSE FACE. I could watch that bit where he sits up and looks around post-syrup revelation all night long.
27. And hello Sam-the-badass. Eat your breakfast, indeed. Never again shall I be able to read sub!Sam after this episode. (And Dean’s just like ‘yeah, okay, I shall eat’ like Sam ordering him around is entirely the norm. Which, you know, IT SO IS. *WINCEST HAT*)
28. I really, really wasn’t sure whether the dude was a trickster or not. And I was pretty sure that Sam would kill him anyway, at this stage in the game. Which, hi, badass-Sam. -And, again, Dean is pretty much just stood there watching his brother threaten a guy’s life, even though he doesn’t know what’s going on either. Because it’s Sam. Our Demon Jesus.
29. I LOVE THE TRICKSTER SO FUCKING MUCH. I DON’T CARE THAT I DON’T QUITE KNOW WHAT HIS ‘TEACH SAM A REALLY NASTY LESSON’ MOTIVES ARE, HE’S JUST THAT AWESOME. I love the way he smiles and the way he casually insults them and the way he’s so entirely unfazed by the potentially-murderous stake jabbing into his neck. Also, I love the way his whole shoulder is basically the size of one of Sam’s hands. Hi, Sam.
30. “Are you kidding? This isn’t the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard?”
31. And right about now is where the episode took a turn I entirely and completely was not expecting in a million years. YEAH, I CRIED. And I loved it. I also love that not one of the deaths in this episode (in this whole damn series, hello) is sentimental. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking or sad or whatever, but there are no last words or touching final moments. Instead, it’s brutal and unpleasant and real.
32. “I’m supposed to wake up”. Hello, my broken heart.
33. Montages are never going to not be cheesy, but HI HI HI BROKEN, BADASS SAM WHO MOVES LIKE A ROBOT AND REMOVES HIS OWN BULLETS WITHOUT EVEN FLINCHING AND NEVER BLINKS AND HOLDS HIS FORKS LIKE HE HATES THEM AND HAS A GUN-CLEANING KIT AND OBSESSIVELY STRAIGHTENED RIGHT-ANGLES AND STILL HAS A PINK TOOTHBRUSH.
33b. How much do I love that a Sam without his Dean is a John without his wife? Except even worse than John. So much worse, because, sure, John had a freaky-obsessive case for his weaponry and a love of highly detailed walls, but he also smiled and laughed and got angry and probably he flinched when he removed his bullets. (You’ve gotta wonder, was the John mimicry a conscious decision on Sam’s part, or is it a family trait, or were they just raised to make their beds under times of stress?)
33c. The AHBL2 parallels are running amok throughout (hell, initially I thought badass-Sam in the car was driving to a crossroads), and I love and embrace them. They’ve both given up their souls, their lives, for each other now. Sam just took a more metaphorical route.
34. I WAS SO ENGROSSED IN THE NOT!BOBBY- SAM SCENE, I DIDN’T ACTUALLY NOTICE THEY WERE BACK AT THE MYSTERY SPOT UNTIL THE SECOND VIEWING. NOT EVEN THE UPSIDE-DOWN TABLES GAVE THE GAME AWAY.
35. I’m not sure whether or not Sam came to the conversation expecting Bobby to be the trickster, but I’m going to go with ‘not’, just so I can think that he really was about to go and find someone to bleed dry for his brother. (Hi hi, evil Sam.)
36. “Whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object.” THANK YOU, SHOW. THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT.
36b. “Nothing good comes out of it; just blood, and pain.” So now I’m wondering what the trickster knows. ‘Cause that’s the kind of statement of someone who knows what’s gonna happen. If tricksters can fuck around with time so much, I bet they can see the future. Hell, maybe this dude’s already been there.
36c. SAM, YOUR FACE. Not even a God-type can resist THAT FACE.
37. THAT HUG. OH MY GOD, THAT HUG. I NEEDED THAT LIKE I NEED BREATHING.
37b. !!!!!!!!!!!
So. What does this all mean for Sam? 100+ days of verging-on-insanity plus at least three months of emotional-deaditude and a lack of Dean. There’s gotta be psychological ramifications for that shit. I don’t know if we’ll be seeing any next episode, seeing as that one was originally going to come before Mystery Spot, but... maybe in the next ones? I really hope so. Because badass-broken-Sam is disturbingly hot. And incestuous.