A Season 3 Favorite – Bad Day At Black Rock

Our little rewatch of Supernatural has arrived at another favorite episode! I feel like I’ve been saying that almost constantly during this rewatch, but the first few seasons of this show were just SO amazing. Even watching sixteen years later, they hold up incredibly well – in fact, I think this show really has spoiled me. I stack every other new show up against this one, and few make the cut. Supernatural is THAT good.

Anyway… I love this episode for its humor, which Jared and Jensen carry out masterfully, but it comes during a dark time in the show’s canon. Kripke was particularly good at knowing when the audience needed a bit of comic relief from the darkness, because at this time Supernatural was very much still a horror show. The combination was compelling, like the best twists and turns and scares of a roller coaster, but I’m sure it was hard to pull off. But Supernatural? Did it every single time in the early years. Including in this episode. With brilliant writing by Ben Edlund and directing by Bob Singer, this episode is an all time favorite.

Let’s jump in!

‘THEN’ reminds us that this is, in fact, a horror genre show. That the boys’ dad is gone, and Dean is determined that they will carry out his legacy. That Dean sold his soul to save Sam and has a year to live before being sent to Hell.  That a mysterious chick named Ruby might have a blade that can kill a demon and insists she can save Dean. Oh, and a reminder of the hunter Gordon Walker, convinced that Sam Winchester is fighting on hell’s side in the upcoming war….

NOW.

Kubrick visits Gordon in prison, telling him that a devil’s gate was opened in Wyoming.   (Kubrick was a fascinating character played perfectly by Michael Massee, who sadly passed away in 2016.)

Gordon is immediately suspicious. He’s got a one track mind when it comes to Sam – an obsession really. Gordon is such an interesting character, both he and Kubrick in this episode vividly showing that hunters have a dark side. They’re obsessed, most of them, in one way or another. If they weren’t, would anyone do what they do? And that includes the Winchesters, all of them, eventually. I love that the show has never shied away from examining its heroes and pointing out their flaws – the ARE heroes, no doubt about it, but what they do skates the thin line between right and wrong and is almost always on the not-quite-legal side of things, especially in the early seasons. It made for a compelling narrative and characters.

Gordon: Sam Winchester was there, wasn’t he?

Kubrick is initially doubtful about Sam going darkside – Bobby Singer says the Winchesters were there, but they went in there to stop it.

Kubrick: He’s a hunter, that’s all.

Gordon laughs.

Gordon: Kubrick, I’m not even sure he’s human.  Track him down, Kubrick. Sam Winchester must die.

Gordon hangs up dramatically, and we all know the boys are in trouble.

The Supernatural Season 3 title card hits the screen, and then we’re with our boys. In the Impala at night on a quiet, dark road. Sam and Dean are arguing, and Dean is pissed that Sam is considering working with Ruby. Of course, the boys are keeping secrets, so he doesn’t know that Sam is considering it to save Dean. At this time in the show, we already know the lengths Dean will go to in order to ensure Sam is okay, but we’re now finding out that Sam will go every bit as far.

Dean: The second you find out this Ruby chick is a demon, you go for the holy water, you don’t chat!

Sam bristles, saying no one was chatting.

Dean demands to know why he didn’t send her back to hell then, and Sam reluctantly admits that she said she could help him out of his deal. Dean stares at Sam incredulously, while Sam sits silent and sullen.

Dean: What is wrong with you, huh? She’s lying, you gotta know that, don’t you? She knows what your weakness is – it’s me. What else did she say?

Sam doesn’t answer.

Dean: Dude!

Sam: Nothing. Look, I’m not an idiot, Dean, I’m not talking about trusting her, I’m talking about using her.

I forget sometimes how reasonable it all seemed at the beginning of the season. It’s probably what any of us would have done, if we wanted to save someone we loved and there was no other way to do it. Of course Sam desperately wanted to believe Ruby – and Dean’s right, she knew that.

Dean: You’re okay, right? I mean, you’re feeling okay?

Dean, of course, knows that if he tries to welsh on the deal, Sam will once again drop dead. Both of them are terrified that they’re about to lose the other.

Sam snaps back, saying he’s fine.

Sam: Why are you always asking me that?

Dean has not forgotten what his little brother looked like laid out on that old bed, lifeless. He can’t shake the fear that Sam really isn’t okay, that he’s going to be yanked out of Dean’s life once again just like that.

A phone rings and it turns out to be one in the glove department – one of John’s.  Sam answers it as Edgar Casey and says he’ll handle whatever it is himself, don’t call the police. Turns out John Winchester had a storage container outside Buffalo – and someone just broke into it.

Interesting! John kept so damn many secrets from his sons, how did he expect them to fare as hunters when he was gone??

Sam and Dean go to the storage place. Dean’s a little put off that their dad kept the locker a secret. Me too, Dean.

Dean: Man, just… Dad. You know him and his secrets. Spent all this time with the guy and it’s like we barely even know the man.

There’s real hurt behind his complaints, though Dean makes it a joke.

Dean especially kind of idolized his Dad, put him on a pedestal and wanted to be like him. It must have felt like John didn’t truly trust his sons if he never even told them about the place he stored so many important things.

There’s a devil’s trap painted on the floor and a tripwire attached to a shotgun that caught the intruder – there’s blood on the floor too.

Dean: Dear old Dad… Living the high life as usual.

This scene is beautiful, the boys silhouetted in the doorway as they enter, lit only by their flashlights. The early seasons had alot of flashlight illuminated scenes, a specialty of director of photography Serge Ladouceur, and they really worked to produce more of that horror/gothic feel to the show.

This is a seemingly inconsequential scene which is anything but. It gives us a little more information about who the elusive John Winchester really was. Dean finds a dusty old trophy from 1995.

Sam: No way! That’s my Division Championship soccer trophy, I can’t believe he kept this!

Dean: Yeah, it’s probably about the closest you ever came to being a boy.

Ah Dean, always with the misogynistic taunts in the early seasons (though his soft smile says he’s loving seeing Sam’s outburst of joy). Brothers, man.

Then Dean finds something to be excited about too.

Dean: Oh wow, it’s my first sawed-off. I made it myself – sixth grade…

Edlund is brilliant at inserting small moments which make a big point. Sam proud of something so “normal”, a soccer trophy, something many of us have in our rooms or our kids’ rooms or in the basement. Dean, on the other hand, proud of a homemade shotgun – that he made in SIXTH GRADE. When he was like ELEVEN. That’s….horrifying. And his father was damn proud of him for that. At what age, you have to wonder, did Dean give up being a child at all?

The thing about John Winchester is that the character is fascinating and complex, even when he’s not onscreen. John, who overtly seemed to care about nothing except hunting once Mary was killed, nevertheless kept the things his sons were proud of. Which means John was proud of them too. As much as he was furious about Sam leaving the life to go to college, he was proud of some of the things he did when he was in school – some “normal” things like playing on a soccer team.

In a back room they find land mines, guns, and lots of boxes on a shelf with symbols on them, which are a lot more in line with the John Winchester we’ve come to know (or tried to figure out, at least)

Sam: Hey Dean, check this out. See these symbols? That’s binding magic. These are curse boxes.

Dean: They’re supposed to keep the evil mojo in, right? Kinda like the Pandora deal?

Sam notices a rectangular shape that’s clear of dust and they realize one box is missing.

Dean: Maybe they didn’t open it…

Cut to the hapless thieves arguing about whether or not to open it, one of them still bleeding from John Winchester’s rigged shotgun, moaning about bleeding to death. They consider double crossing the woman who hired them to steal it for a few hundred bucks and selling it themselves instead – so, predictably, they open it.

Wayne: Are you kidding me? It’s a rabbit’s foot. I’m gonna die for a damn rabbit’s foot!

Their landlord shows up just then but instead of him continuing to yell at them for the noise, he says it’s their lucky day, he used to be an Army medic and he can stitch Wayne up. Lucky!

His luck continues as he keeps winning at Poker as the Winchesters pull up outside, draw their guns and break into the apartment.

Wayne: I can’t lose, I mean I really can’t lose! Maybe this thing really works!

At that moment, Sam and Dean burst in, guns drawn, demanding they give them the box.

Dean: And please tell me that you didn’t…

Sam: Oh, they did.

Dean glances at the rabbit foot and Wayne uses his distraction to knock his gun out of Dean’s hand.

It fires as it lands and the bullet flies around the room, ricocheting off the wall and hitting Sam’s gun so that it falls too, then breaking a lamp. It’s sudden chaos and it’s choreographed magnificently – and it’s instantly hilarious.  Sam and Grossman both go for Sam’s gun, Sam falling into Dean and Dean falling backwards onto the coffee table so that the rabbit’s foot goes flying into the air.

Sam to Dean: Sorry!

I’m already laughing and that put me over the top.

A fight ensues, Dean getting knocked down as soon as he gets up, Grossman trying to strangle Sam. Desperately, Sam manages to grab the rabbit’s foot.

Sam: Dean, I got it!

Wayne grabs Dean’s gun and points it at Sam’s face.

He starts to pull the trigger as Sam grimaces, and Dean gets up and goes to stop him, but the gun jams.

Wayne trips over the rug and falls backwards over the couch and knocks himself out.

Sam and Dean exchange a look, like WTF?

Grossman gets up to point a gun at Sam again.

Dean: Sam!

But Grossman knocks himself out too, knocking all the books on the shelf off and onto his head. As he falls, the gun flies out of his hand and Sam catches it just like that.

Dean: Wha???

Me: Laughing my head off.

Dean: That was a lucky break! Is that a… rabbit’s foot?

Sam: I think it is.

Perfect delivery by both Ackles and Padalecki, amazing choreography of the physical comedy probably by Lou Bollo, and the entire scene is something I can watch again and again and laugh every time.

At first it seems like not such a bad thing that Sam ended up with the foot. Dean buys some lottery cards, scratching them off eagerly.

Dean: That was my gun he was aiming at your head, and my gun don’t jam, so that was a lucky break. Not to mention them taking themselves out. Here, scratch one. C’mon Sam, scratch and win!

Sam is not convinced, saying it has to be cursed somehow or their dad wouldn’t have locked it up.

Dean: You just won $1200!! I don’t know man, it doesn’t seem that cursed to me!

We soon find out just how wrong the luck can go when someone has had the foot and lost it. Poor Wayne walks to the sink, where we can see a giant BBQ fork perched ominously on the counter, and oh no this is gonna go so very very wrong.

Yes yes Supernatural, I know you’re a horror show, but that huge dip we just took from me laughing delightedly to me covering my eyes in fear is dizzying!

I was half covering my eyes before (after one classic horror movie fake out where Wayne does NOT trip on the beer bottle rolling around the floor after he puts the giant fork tongs UP in the drying rack).

But as he goes to leave, oops, he steps right on the beer bottle and he falls backwards – impaling himself on the giant fork of course.

Grossman’s face is me at that moment too, ngl.

Meanwhile, Sam’s luck is holding. The boys stop at Biggerson’s Restaurant, Dean still cackling over their lottery winnings, Sam on the phone with Bobby.

Bobby: You touched it? Damn it, Sam!

The boys didn’t know about the storage place, but Bobby apparently did – he built those curse boxes for John.

As Bobby explains that they’ve got a serious problem, Sam randomly finds a gold watch, holding it up for Dean.

Dean: (silently) Awesome.

Bobby says it’s real Old World hoodoo – and that it’s a curse made to kill people.

Bobby: You touch it, you own it. You own it, sure, you get a run of good luck to beat the devil. But you lose it, that luck turns. It turns so bad that you’re dead inside a week.

Sam swears he won’t lose it.

Bobby (always the voice of reason): EVERYBODY LOSES IT!!

He hangs up to go work on finding a way to break the curse. Sam is worried, while Dean is reassuring.

Dean: Don’t worry, Bobby’ll find a way to break it. Until then, I say we hit Vegas, pull a little Rain Man. You can be Rain Man.

Sam: Look, we just lay low until Bobby calls back, okay? Table for two please.

At that moment music starts blaring and balloons and confetti start dropping and the staff starts singing and taking photos – they’re the one millionth customers!

Dean is as happy as a five year old, while Sam looks like he would give anything to be anywhere else.

Jared Padalecki’s acting in this episode is amazing – he has such a gift for comedy, and doesn’t even need dialogue to crack me up even now as I’m watching it for probably the tenth time. Poor Sammy!

And Jensen gives us such insight into Dean even in these little moments – how unabashedly happy he is to be celebrated like that, or to have a lucky break. He hasn’t had many in his life, and he genuinely appreciates every one of them, and at this point, life in general.

*             *             *

As the boys head to Buffalo, Kubrick tells Creedy that if Gordon says Sam is dangerous, they need to believe him. Creedy is skeptical, playing with a little plastic Jesus. Another, in black velvet, is on the wall of Kubrick’s trailer home. (Were those the trailers the boys were using on set at the time? I feel like maybe they were – I visited the set for the first time in early Season 4 and spent some time in Jared’s and Jensen’s trailers, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they looked like)

Kubrick: Don’t play with my Jesus.

(This is a Ben Edlund episode and it totally shows and I am totally here for it!)

While Kubrick and Creedy wait for a clue as to where Sam is, they plan a trip to a favorite restaurant – you guessed it, Biggersons! They check the website… and up pops the photo of Sam and Dean as the one millionth visitors.

Kubrick looks up to Heaven like it was some kind of divine intervention. (Which, now that we know about Chuck… who knows?)

*             *             *

Sam and Dean enjoy their Biggersons, Sam doing research and Dean chowing down on ice cream. Sam laughs like every younger sibling ever when Dean gets brain freeze, clutching his head. Brothers, man.

An attractive waitress spills some coffee as she pours it for Sam and he’s flustered as she flirts with him.

Dean is half amused and half pissy about it, because early seasons Dean is always inexplicably totally cheerleading Sam getting laid and at the same time not wanting Sam to leave (or be the one to get the girl…even if he’s always wanting Sam to get the girl…)

The waitress tosses a flirty look over her shoulder as they both watch her walk away.

Dean: Dude, if you were ever gonna get lucky…

Sam: Shut up.

And then things take a turn. A comedic turn, but a tragic turn for one Sam Winchester.

He knocks his coffee cup over, spilling it on himself, and as he jumps up out of his seat he runs right into a server with a full tray of dishes, which fly everywhere.

Sam: Sorry!

Dean: (looking dumbfounded)  How was that good?

Sam looks in his pocket and sure enough, the rabbit’s foot is gone.

Dean: Sonofabitch!

And we see the waitress pull off a wig and throw it away, beaming as she looks at the rabbit’s foot she just stole.

Enter Bela, one of the women added to the show in Season 3 because the network said they needed more female characters. They didn’t say it that nicely, but anyway.

Sam and Dean run outside trying to catch up with her, but Sam immediately trips and falls flat on his face.

Dean runs a few steps farther, realizes, and stops, looking over his shoulder to see that his brother has disappeared.

Dean: Wow, you suck.

But he helps Sam up of course. Sam has two bloody knees and looks about five years old, sulking and miserable.

Dean: What, now your luck turns bad? I wonder how bad…

Narrator: Very bad indeed.

The boys go back to Grossman’s apartment, where he’s mourning his friend’s horrific death with tequila, again a very Edlund scene. Dean tells Grossman that they know someone hired him to steal the rabbit’s foot, and that she just stole it back from them. Grossman laughs and Sam interrupts.

Sam: Listen man, this is…

At that, he trips over a lamp cord and falls on his face again, things falling from the shelf and the lamp going down with him.

Dean rolls his eyes, put upon.

Dean: Sam, you okay?

Sam (from behind the couch on the floor): Yeah I’m good.

Dean explains that the foot is what killed his friend.

Dean: And my brother here is next. And who knows how many more innocent people after that. Now if you don’t help us stop this thing, that puts those deaths on your head.

We get a slow close up of Dean as he works hard to convince Grossman.

Dean: Now, I can read people…and I get it. You’re a thief and a scumbag, that’s fine, but you’re not a killer, are you?

Even Sam seems impressed with Dean’s speech, though understandably skeptical.

It actually works, either because Dean is just that convincing or because he’s so goddamn gorgeous in this scene that Grossman (and everyone else in the world) would have agreed to just about anything.

I know I would.

*             *             *

Meanwhile, when Creedy expresses doubt that they’ll be able to find Sam and Dean, who didn’t have to use a credit card for their free Biggersons’s meal, Kubrik isn’t concerned.

Creedy: What makes you so sure?

Kubrik: Cause there’s a higher power at work here, I know it now.

He looks up, presumably to the Heavens.

Gotta love Ben Edlund’s characters! (And the references to a God that seem to be foreshadowing Chuck now that we’re watching many years later)

*             *             *

Sam and Dean leave Grossman’s apartment. Dean steps over a piece of bubblegum on the ground; Sam steps right on it. He tries to wipe it off on the storm grate, to no avail.

Dean’s phone rings and Bobby gives them the good news that he’s found a cleansing ritual that should remove the rabbit’s foot’s curse.

Dean: Uh, that’s great Bobby, except Sam…

He looks back at his brother, who makes a face and lifts up his shoe that’s stuck to the bubblegum. Dean nearly rolls his eyes.

Dean: … Sam lost the foot.

Bobby: He WHAT??

Dean tries to explain about the hot chick who stole it from them as Sam tries to scrape the gum off on the storm grate.

Dean: Her name was Luigi or something.

Sam: Lugosi.

Bobby: Lugosi? Aw crap, it’s probably Bela.

As Bobby explains that her real name is Bela Talbot, Sam’s shoe comes off and falls down into the storm drain.  At this point I am invariably laughing out loud because Jared Padalecki is just that hilarious, and every bit the petulant little brother who just wants his big brother to make it better.

Bobby says Bela is pretty far from a hunter and bad luck for the boys, but he might be able to figure out where to find her.

Bobby: Just look out for your brother, ya idjit.

Dean turns back to Sam, who stands there looking dejected and somehow adorable as he wiggles his toes in his sock.

Dean: What??

Sam: (plaintively) I lost my shoe…

Dean sighs, rolling his eyes. Sam hangs his head.

One of the most well known scenes in the entire series, with both Ackles and Padalecki just playing it to perfection!

Dean deposits his cursed little brother at a local motel to keep him safe while he goes after Bela in NYC, taking him by the arm and ushering him to a chair.

(Detour to give Jerry Wanek and company some well-deserved kudos for the motel set dec including divider, which added so much to the show !)

Dean: You, my brother, are staying here – cause I don’t want your bad luck getting us killed!

Sam (petulantly): What am I even supposed to do, Dean?

You get the feeling that Sammy whined those words to his big brother plenty during their childhood locked in boring motel rooms, right?

Dean: Nothing! Nothing. C’mere, I don’t want you doing anything. I want you to sit right here and don’t move, okay? Don’t turn on the light. Don’t turn off the light. Don’t even scratch your nose.

He deposits Sam on the chair and heads out, locking the door. Sam immediately wrinkles his nose, the power of suggestion making him itch, before surreptitiously giving it a scratch.

He sits there bored, rocking on the chair a little but doing what Dean said, when suddenly the air conditioner starts making ominous sounds and smoking.

Sam (in disbelief): Oh come on, I – I didn’t… I wasn’t…

Reluctantly he gets up and walks over to it just as flames burst from the air conditioner and the telltale “comedy” music of Supernatural starts to play.

He tries to put it out by throwing a comforter on it, but just when he thinks it’s out, he realizes HE is on fire!

He grabs the curtain to put it out and it tears away, and Sam falls backwards and knocks himself out.

Again, Padalecki masters the physical comedy perfectly and the scene never fails to make me laugh out loud.

To make it even more hilarious, on the other side of the window stand Kubrick and Creedy!

Kubrick thanks the Heavens once again.

Sam wakes up tied to a chair with duct tape.

Creedy: We didn’t even have to touch you, you just went all spastic and knocked yourself out! It was like watching Jerry Lewis try to stack chairs.

Kubrick says he used to think Gordon sent him to put a bullet in Sam’s brain.

Sam: Great, that sounds like him.

Kubrick: But, as it turns out? I’m on a mission from God.

He backhands Sam across the face. Poor Sammy – he really is having a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

Meanwhile in NYC, Bela and her pretty kitty are in her pretty apartment talking to the person she stole the foot for when Dean sneaks in like the smart and competent hunter he is. I love this scene because of that – her alarm system starts blinking a big ERROR and then she sees a post it note that says “TURN AROUND”.

Dean’s already got his gun drawn; Bela draws hers too and they face off.

Dean: You left without your tip.

You can see what they were originally going for in this season, after the network told them they needed more “T&A” and they brought in Bela and Ruby to balance out all that testosterone. Bela was an interesting character and Lauren Cohan is great in the role, with just enough sparks flying with both brothers to make things extra interesting. They never really seemed to know what to do with the character though, and fans were pretty content with just Sam and Dean being regulars, so Bela didn’t stick around all that long.

Dean demands the rabbit’s foot back, pointing out that it’s cursed (which she clearly knows since she was holding it with tongs).

Bela shrugs, saying there’s a lot of money to be made.

Bela: You hunters with all those amulets and talismans you use to stop those big bad monsters. Any one of them could put your children’s children through college.

Dean is disgusted.

Dean: So you know the truth about what’s really going on out there and this is what you decide to do with it? Become a thief?

Bela is undeterred.

Bela: No. A great thief.

It’s an interesting commentary on hunting because Bela is right. But our heroes don’t do it for the money or even for the glory. They do the ‘hunting things’ part of their mantra for the other part – to save people. Damn, I love the Winchesters…

Dean tries to appeal to her sympathy, saying that his brother touched the foot and he’ll die unless they can destroy it.

Bela: Oh, you can have the foot… For one point five million.

Again Dean accuses her of being only out for herself, but Bela accuses back.

Bela: Being a hunter is so much more noble? A bunch of obsessed, revenge driven sociopaths trying to save a world that can’t be saved?

But while she’s not convinced, Dean is continuing to show his hunter prowess – he’s grabbed the rabbit’s foot.

Dean: Looks like you’re not the only one with sticky fingers. If it’s any consolation, I think you’re a truly awful person.

She fires at him but now that he’s got the foot, it misses, and the bullet ricochets around the apartment, shattering vases and hitting the Ouija board she used to find it. Dean laughs and runs out the door, Bela trying to shoot him and missing every time

Dean: See ya!

Ackles had fun with that scene, no doubt.

Back at the motel, Creedy throws cold water on Sam to wake him up, and we get some really disturbingly attractive bruised and bloodied Sam Winchester.

Kubrick accuses Sam of being part of the demon plan to open the devil’s gate, accusing him of lying when he says they did everything they could to stop it.

Kubrick: Gordon told me about you, Sam, about your powers. You’re some kinda weirdo psychic freak?

Sam: No, not anymore, no powers, no visions, nothing, it just…

Kubrick punches him, then draws his gun and aims it at Sam.

Sam: Whoa whoa, okay okay, hold on a minute.

Creedy has second thoughts and tries to calm Kubrick down, but Kubrick insists God led them there to do his work. He points his gun at Sam’s forehead, and Sam closes his eyes, expecting the shot.

Kubrick: This is destiny.

We hear a gun cock but his gun doesn’t fire, and then Dean’s there. Big brother to the rescue!

Dean: Nope. No destiny. Just a rabbit’s foot.

Kubrick orders him to put the gun down, and Dean does, cocky. He picks up a pencil instead.

Dean: Okay, but you see, there’s something about me that you don’t know – it’s my lucky day.

He tosses the pen across the room and it jams in the barrel of Kubrick’s gun. Sam looks amazed.

Dean: Ohmygod, did you see that shot? I’m amazing.

Creedy tries to tackle Dean but he side steps and Creedy goes flying into the wall, falling to the floor.

Kubrick tries to pull out the pen, but Dean throws the TV remote at him and it knocks him out cold, and he too falls to the floor.

Dean: (cocky) I’m Batman.

Sam: (sarcastic) Yeah. You’re Batman.

(Little did they both know that one day Jensen would play Batman!)

The boys take the rabbit’s foot to a cemetery and start a fire to burn it, Dean doing some last minute scratching off lottery cards. Sam protests when Dean asks for a second to finish that.

Dean: Hey back off, Jinx, I’m bringin’ home the bacon!

Sam sighs as Dean smirks happily, putting the winning cards in his jacket that’s tossed over a gravestone.

Dean: All right, say goodbye, “wascawy wabbit”.

A gun cocks. It’s Bela, wanting the foot back.  Dean tries the tactic he used before.

Dean: No, you’re not gonna shoot anybody. See I happen to be able to read people. Okay, you’re a thief, fine, but you’re not…

Bela shoots Sam in the shoulder.

Dean: Sonofa—

Bela: Back off tiger. You’ve got the luck, so you I can’t hit – but your brother? I can’t miss.

Dean is PISSED.

Dean: What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t just go around shooting people like that!

Bela: Relax, it’s a shoulder hit, I can aim. Besides, who hasn’t shot a few people? Now put the rabbit’s foot on the ground now.

But Dean is smart in this episode – instead he throws it at her, saying “think fast!”

She instinctively catches it and knows what that means – they burn the foot in the fire, Bela complaining that she’s out one and a half million and on the bad side of a powerful fairly psychotic buyer.

Dean: Wow. I really don’t feel bad about that. Sam?

Sam (still clutching his shoulder): Nope. Not even a little.

She leaves, passing by the gravestone to lean on it for a moment.

Dean checks on Sam, who assures his brother that “I’m good.”

As Bela drives away, Dean comforts himself by thinking about the winning tickets and the $46,000 they’re up.

At least they’ve got that!

Except they’re not in his jacket anymore.

Sam and Dean look at each other as Bela drives away with the cards.

Dean: SONOFABITCH!

That was an adlib (or at least said way louder and more dramatically than expected) that took Jared by surprise, and you can see him break and start to laugh before he rescues the scene by turning away from the camera.

A favorite little moment that luckily made the gag reel!

Back to the actual episode, Kubrick visits Gordon in prison, saying he was right about Sam Winchester, that he’s more than a monster – he’s the adversary.

Gordon: What convinced you?

Kubrick: God led him to me.

Gordon doesn’t buy that at all, but he does agree that they’ve got to get him out of there.

Gordon: Cause like I told you before, Sam Winchester must die.

A chilling ending!

This is one of my favorite episodes for the dark humor and Ackles and Padalecki’s amazing comedic talents, but it ended with that line absolutely giving me goosebumps. Sterling K. Brown is such a great actor, and he made Gordon truly terrifying. We were all on the edge of our seats waiting for the next episode!

Beautiful caps by spndeangirl/raloria

Gifs: debriefingspn, supernatural amino, gfycat

-Lynn

You can read about Jared and Jensen’s

experience as Sam and Dean and what

Supernatural means to them in their

chapters in Family Don’t End With Blood

and There’ll Be Peace When You Are

Done – links on the home page or at: