"No matter what I do, you die. And then I wake up. And then it's Tuesday again."

Hey, there's no voiceover to take us into the previouslies.

Then.

"So what do you say we kill some evils sons of bitches and we raise a little hell?" Dean suggests.

A montage of the brothers fighting off various evil things follows, including, among others, reminders of their experiences with the ghost girl in Provenance, the ghost nurse in Folsom Prison Blues, the Trickster in Tall Tales, and the Djinn in What Is and What Should Never Be.

Dean sold his soul to the crossroads demon in exchange for Sam's life. Bobby asked how long the demon had given him, and Dean confessed that he only had one year to live.

In a dream root fuelled dreamscape, Dean was tormented by a vision of himself as a demon, taunting that this was what he was going to become.

"I don't want to go to hell," he quietly admitted to Sam, later.
"We'll find a way to save you," Sam promised.

John told his sons all about the special gun made by Samuel Colt back in 1835, a gun that can kill anything. John used it to kill a vampire threatening Sam, and Sam used it to kill the crossroads demon. We don't get to see any of the many other examples of the Colt's use, because the recap can't go on all night. And then Bela Talbot stole the Colt from the brothers.

Ruby told Dean that she needed his help with Sam. "You need to help me get him ready to fight this war on his own."

Now.

Sam wakes with a start as the radio alarm starts to blare Asia right alongside his head. He sits bolt upright to blink at the clock, which declares it to be 7.30am on Tuesday morning. Let us take a moment to admire Sam's ability to go from fast asleep to bolt upright in 0.3 seconds. Me, I take a little longer to achieve full consciousness, however obnoxious the alarm is being.

Dean sits on the other bed, fully clothed already and busily tying his bootlaces. He has the bed nearest the door, we note, in something of a return to form – Malleus Maleficarum really was an aberration there, it seems. "Rise and shine, Sammy!" he cheerfully greets his brother, remarkably chipper for this hour of the morning and in striking contrast to his downbeat mood at the end of Dream a Little Dream of Me. It's very in character for Dean to rapidly regain his equilibrium once he has unburdened himself a little. He clearly feels a lot better simply for having shared his fears with Sam, the two of them drawing comfort and strength from one another once more.

Since the episode is opening on the brothers like this, even unspoiled viewers are instantly on the alert for something Really Bad to happen to one of them, because that's always a given when we have the two of them leading us into the titles, rather than random guest characters in a case-establishing teaser.

Sam grumbles about the Asia, prompting Dean to cheerfully retort, in the face of all evidence, that Sam loves this song. "Yeah, and if I ever hear it again I'm going to kill myself," Sam snorts. Ah, the foreshadowing irony, since Sam is going to be hearing this song a lot during the episode.

Dean promptly turns the radio up louder, but Sam is amused rather than annoyed by his brother's teasing good mood, laughing and shaking his head in disbelief as Dean points at him and starts singing and bopping along to the music.

Bathroom. Bless his heart, Sam has a hot pink toothbrush. I bet Dean bought it for him. And they have bubblegum flavoured toothpaste. They are such kids. While Sam carefully squeezes toothpaste onto his toothbrush, peering dubiously at the tube, which Dean has left in a mess, Dean stands alongside him, head thrown back, gargling long and loud. Sam eventually can't stand it any longer and turns to stare in disbelief at his brother, both for the irritation factor and for the sheer fact of how long he can keep it going. Dean grins, yet another wind-up successfully pulled off.

It's all so domestic and cute and everyday, and I love it. And they have absolutely no personal space at all, and don't even seem to notice.

Later. Sam is ready to go out. Dean is searching through piles of discarded clothing.

"Whenever you're ready, Dean," Sam grumps from the doorway.
In response, Dean holds up a lacy black bra he just unearthed. "This yours?" Heh.

Sam rolls his eyes and throws up his hands in frustration. Dean snorts, mission accomplished, and then finally finds the gun he was looking for. Now he's ready to go get some breakfast. Sam lets out a weary sigh. Big brothers – who'd have them?

Diner. "Drive safely now, Mr Picket," the cashier tells an elderly customer just as the boys enter the establishment. They make their way to a table, past the waitress informing a down-and-out guy named Cal that he has to either order something or leave. He pushes a few coins at her and asks for coffee.

The brothers sit down, and Dean's eyes are instantly glued to the specials board. "Hey, Tuesday – pig 'n a poke."
"Do you even know what that is?" Sam asks. I'm wondering much the same thing myself, and we never really find out.

Waitress Doris comes to take the order. Dean asks for the special, side of bacon and coffee. Sam likewise orders coffee, but with short stack. That's pancakes, right?

Once the waitress has gone, Dean leans back comfortably in his chair as he tells his brother that this job they've come here for is small fry and they should be hunting down Bela. Since we know that the episode order was switched and this was originally intended to air as episode 12 rather than 11, we now know as a result of this comment that the boys aren't going to find Bela and the Colt in next week's episode, either, since that one was originally intended to air before this one. Sam snarks that they should get right on the Bela hunt, then – "where is she, again?" Disgruntled, Dean grumbles at him to shut up.

I really, really love the vibe between the brothers throughout this section. It's casual and routine, and with the affectionate banter, and Dean has been winding Sam up just because he can and he's in a good mood and it's fun, but Sam hasn't minded in the slightest and gives as good as he gets, and they're just so damn comfortable with each other. They're enjoying one another's company, and it's good to see, and that, of course, is the point, to emphasise the pain of what is to come.

"Look, believe me, I want to find her as bad as you do," Sam says, and viewers quietly weep for his lost grammatical skills; Dean is a bad influence on him, clearly. In the meantime, he insists, they have this gig he's found. He hands Dean a pile of paper, which Dean takes with a reluctant sigh.

It's been a while since we were given such a definitive distinction between one brother initiating a case and the other being dubious about it.

Sam catches Dean up to speed on the research he's done, all preliminary rather than in-depth – one Professor Dexter Hasselback was passing through town a week ago, and vanished without trace. His daughter reported that he was on his way to visit the Broward Country Mystery Spot. Broward County is in Florida, which I believe is a first for the show – they've mentioned Florida, but never been there on-screen. Dean wrinkles his nose at the leaflets advertising this Mystery Spot, 'where the laws of physics have no meaning.'

The waitress arrives with the coffees and a bottle of hot sauce, which promptly topples off her tray and smashes messily on the floor.

Street. A golden retriever tied to a bicycle rack barks loudly as the brothers pedeconference past, Dean grumbling that joints like this Mystery Spot are just tourist traps. "The only danger's to your wallet."

Sam argues that there are spots in the world where holes open up and swallow people, such as the Bermuda Triangle or the Oregon Vortex. Dean scoffs at the idea of Broward County Mystery Spot being one of those places. Sam doesn't like his idea being sniffed at and protests that some of these places are legit. Dean sighs and goes with it. "All right, so if it is legit, and that's a big-ass if, what's the lore?"

As Sam begins to reply, a young blonde woman bumps into Dean in passing, excuses herself, and hurries on. Dean turns to watch her go as Sam explains that the lore is pretty nuts, all about magnetic fields so strong they can bend space-time, sending victims no one knows where. Dean remains unconvinced, remarking that it all sounds a little X-Files to him. They walk past a couple of furniture removers struggling without anything approaching success to get a large desk through a door that is patently too narrow for it. Sam concedes that he doesn't know if this place is for real, but he wants to check it out just in case they can do something about it.

Aww. Sammy's come a long, long way since season one. He's turned into such a diligent investigator of the unusual. Dean gives in and suggests that they go along tonight, once the place is closed, and have a good look.

Mystery Spot. It's tacky and bizarre, typical small-town tourist trap. I love the paint job in the hallway. The brothers let themselves in and start poking around. Dean is deeply unimpressed by the furniture nailed to the ceiling, scoffing at how uncanny it isn't, while Sam busies himself waving an EMF reader around, but gets nothing, not so much as a chirp.

Dean: "Find anything?"
Sam: "No."
Dean: "Do you have any idea what you're looking for?"
Sam: "Uh…yeah."
Dean lifts his eyebrows.
Sam: "No."
Hee. I love Dean's long-suffering expression and shake of the head here – he really, really believes this is a total waste of time and only came here to humour Sam.

Long shot. Someone is watching the boys as they poke around.

"What the hell you doing here?" a gruff voice filled with fear rings out. The brothers spin around, Dean with his gun at the ready, to find themselves face to face with a very scared man wielding a shotgun. The proprietor.

Dean immediately lowers his weapon and offers to explain, while Sam's eyes go wide as he raises his arms to show himself to be harmless. Proprietor, completely freaked at finding strangers in his place after closing, panics that they are robbing him. Sam tries to assure him that they aren't robbing him and to calm down. Dean lowers his weapon a little more, using his calmest voice to reassure the man that he's just putting the gun down.

Proprietor panics still more and fires, and Dean takes the shot point-blank to the chest and goes down. Sam and Proprietor are both horrified, Sam rushing to his brother's side in panic, calling his name. "Dean! Dean? Dean…"

Viewers start wibbling as Sam lifts his critically injured brother into his arms and frantically barks at the still-stunned Proprietor to call 911, NOW, even as the shocked man backs away and mumbles that he didn't mean it.

There's a lot of brotherly manhandling in this episode; this is just the beginning.

Dean gasps and chokes and clutches at Sam's shirt, his eyes fixed on his brother's face, needing that contact now more than ever, with pain and fear and confusion and, yes, still that concern for his little brother playing out across his face.

"No. No. Not like this. Dean," Sam whimpers, as Dean's eyes fade and slide away from him and close, and then it's over, and viewers' hearts break right along with Sam's.

The episodes weren't originally intended to air in this order, but damn – this scene hits even harder than it would anyway coming immediately after Dean's little 'I don't want to die' breakthrough at the end of the last episode!

Titles.

Motel. It's 7.30am, and Asia blares on the radio. Sam's eyes open and he jerks bolt upright, to find Dean sitting on the bed opposite tying his bootlaces. "Rise and shine, Sammy!" he exuberantly calls.

Sam's face is a picture of astonishment and incomprehension as he glances from his miraculously alive-again brother to the clock, which reads Tuesday, and back again. Dean picks up the cue Sam just missed and comments on the fact that Asia is playing. Sam gapes at him in sheer disbelief. "Dean?"

"Oh, come on, you love this song and you know it," Dean teases, just as he did last time, turning the music up the better to point and sing along and shimmy his way over to the bathroom. Sam continues to gape, and wonders if he's losing his mind.

Bathroom. Dean is gargling at length, just as he did last time. Sam rinses his mouth, turning to regard his brother quizzically, his face perfectly expressing that his bewilderment is divided between incredulity, again, at how long Dean can gargle like that, and disbelief in the sheer fact of Dean being there at all. He spits, still confused. Dean follows suit and wonders why Sam is staring at him. Sam's almost child-like uncertainty is written all over his face as he admits he doesn't know.

"You all right?" Dean asks, drying his face.
"No," Sam admits, still deeply puzzled. "I think I…" He gives up trying to work it out and shakes his head with a sigh. "Man, I had a weird dream."
Dean picks his teeth. "Yeah? Clowns or midgets?"
Ha.

Diner. "Drive safely now, Mr Picket," Cashier tells Old Man, once again, as the boys enter.

"Can't stay unless you order something, Cal, you know the rules," Doris tells Cal, again, as the boys pass on their way to one of the many empty booths. Cal pushes a few coins at her and orders coffee, again. Sam watches the little by-play with his jaw just about hitting the floor, confusion raging once more as every detail of the day he just lived through plays out before his eyes a second time. He'd almost convinced himself that it was just a horrible dream, that Dean at the motel was a coincidence, but that conviction is fast breaking down in the face of this new evidence.

"Hey, Tuesday: pig 'n a poke," Dean enthuses.
Sam just cannot understand what's going on. "It's Tuesday?" he doubts. Dean confirms that yes, it is, just as Doris comes over to take their order.

Dean orders the special, side of bacon, and coffee, again. Sam is starting to become seriously alarmed now, and stutters that he won't be having anything.

"I'm telling you, Sam, this job is small fry. We should be spending our time hunting down Bela," Dean grumbles, again, as Doris smiles off to the kitchen. Sam is still staring off into space, trying to work out what's going on. Dean notices his distraction and snaps his fingers to get his brother's attention. "You sure you're feeling okay?"

Sam can't take any more. "You don't…you don't remember any of this?"
It's Dean's turn to be perplexed. "Remember what?"
"This. Today." Bless, Sam isn't terribly good at explaining himself when he is flustered – we've seen that before. "Like it's happened before?"
"You mean like déjà vu?" Dean offers.
"No, I mean like it's really happened before," Sam tries to clarify.
"Yeah. Like déjà vu," Dean points out, nonplussed.
Sam is getting frustrated, with a side of freaked. "No, forget about déjà vu," he snaps. "I'm asking you if it feels like we're living yesterday all over again."
Dean has no idea what he's talking about, so focuses on the semantics. "Okay, how is that not dé–?"
"Don't say it!" Sam explodes.
Hee.

Doris arrives with Dean's coffee and the hot sauce, which promptly topples off the tray. Even as it happens, you can see Sam remembering this from last time, and he reacts just in time to catch it before it hits the ground. Doris is overcome with admiration, and Dean is impressed with his brother's reflexes.

Sam is starting to seriously freak out about the fact that everything he remembers happening in the yesterday that apparently wasn't is happening all over again, but he doesn't seem to have put all the pieces together yet – still isn't convinced he didn't dream the whole thing somehow. He's had premonitions before; the possibility that this was another one has to have crossed his mind. Mostly, though, he simply doesn't understand, doesn't know what the hell to think, and is just very and increasingly freaked.

Street. The golden retriever barks as the boys pass, and Sam turns to stare at it, recognising yet another detail and still unable to understand how or why this is happening.

"Sam, I'm sorry, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Dean sighs.
"Okay, look. Yesterday was Tuesday, right?" Sam wigs.
Dean lifts an eyebrow and says nothing, since from where he's standing yesterday was Monday.
"But today is Tuesday too!" Sam rants.
"Yeah. Oh, good, you're totally balanced," Dean mutters, confused by his brother's bizarre behaviour.
"So you don't believe me?" Sam fumes.

Dean bumps into Young Blonde Woman before he can answer. She mumbles 'excuse me', again, and Dean turns to watch her hurry away, again. Sam also turns to watch her hurry away, his disbelief and alarm escalating by the moment.

Dean points out that it's crazy, even for them. "'Dingo ate my baby' crazy. Hey, maybe it was another one of your psychic premonitions."

That isn't such an impossible suggestion, but Sam says no, it was way too vivid. I still tend to think he must have at least half-suspected that possibility himself at first, but the more details are stacking up, the more sure he is that it's something else entirely. "Okay, we were at the Mystery Spot, and then…" he begins to break it down, only to tail off, not wanting to admit to what happened at the Mystery Spot. Saying something out loud makes it real, and neither brother is fond of doing that this season.

"And then what?" Dean wonders.
Sam can't bring himself to say it. "Then I woke up," he mutters, sullen.

The brothers pass the removal men, struggling again to get that desk through the narrow door. Sam notes yet another repetition from the yesterday-that-wasn't, and then has a brainwave – rather belated, I tend to think, given that he was so keen to believe in the Mystery Spot to begin with, but he's already off-balance, already losing perspective and the ability to rationalise – and wonders if the Mystery Spot caused all this. It isn't an unreasonable assumption, at this stage, given that it was at the Mystery Spot that Dean died and the day reset.

"We've got to check that place out," he growls, belligerent as if the Mystery Spot is his worst enemy. "Look, just go with me on this, okay?"
Dean gives in. "All right. We'll go tonight, after closing, get ourselves a nice long look," he suggests, just as he did last time.
Hearing those words and remembering what happened last time, Sam instantly wigs out and slams on the brakes. "Wait, what? No!"

Dean is confused, and wonders why not. Sam stammers his way through a counter-suggestion that they just go now, rather than wait, and he sounds like nothing so much as a little kid trying to talk his parent into letting him stay up late or something, all hopeful smiles and wide eyes. It's exactly the same comically bad bluffing that he employed in The Kids Are Alright when Dean almost busted him talking deal-breaking research with Bobby, and Dean can't figure out what the hell has got into his brother today. "My God, you're a freak," he snorts. "Okay. Whatever, we'll go now."

Dean turns and starts to walk again, glancing one way before stepping into the road, but not checking the other way…it's a fatal mistake. A car slams right into him, moving way too fast considering it's coming up to a junction. There's a terrible screeching of brakes and sickening thud as Dean goes flying over the top of the car like a rag doll, and Sam throws his arms over his eyes reflexively. Then he looks at what just happened, and is horrified all over again, yelling his brother's name as he rushes to him.

Dean lies in the road, battered and bloody but still alive, just barely. Sam does just about the worst thing you could do in this situation: he abruptly hauls his brother up into his arms, heedless of broken bones and internal injuries. Doesn't he know any first aid at all? Then he glances over at the car, which has stopped, and a rather befuddled old Mr Picket from the diner looks back at him. So much for driving carefully.

Breathing very, very fast as his horror-fuelled adrenaline pumps madly, Sam looks back down at his brother only to find him already dead, eyes fixed and staring at nothing.

Eyes open dead is way creepier than eyes closed dead. Just saying.

Sam tries shaking Dean's body and calling his name, over and over, before finally allowing himself to comprehend the awful truth: that Dean has died in his arms twice in as many days.

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia plays. Sam's eyes open and he jerks upright with a gasp, to find Dean tying his bootlaces and greeting him with a hearty "rise and shine, Sammy!" yet again. Sam's breathing starts to get very fast as panic sets in. That panic is Sam's greatest enemy in this episode – he was thrown off balance by Dean's first death, and the accelerating sequence of events has kept him off balance ever since, moving too fast for him to keep up. He never gets the chance to stop, absorb and process, to retreat and regroup. All he can do is react, and he's so busy reacting he never really takes the time to actually think.

Bathroom. Dean gargles. Sam stands in the doorway and watches him, freaking out.

Diner. Dean comments on Tuesday being pig 'n a poke day.

"Look, would you listen to me, Dean? 'Cause I am flipping out," Sam mutters in a fast, low tone, deadly serious. Doris arrives to take their order, and Sam impatiently cuts right to the chase. "He'll take the special, side of bacon, coffee: black, nothing for me, thanks." Bemused, Doris agrees and toddles off.

Dean looks at Sam, amused. "Sammy, I get all tingly when you take control like that," he jokes.
Sam is in no mood for humour. "Quit screwing around, Dean," he frantically snips.
Dean sobers up and leans forward. "Okay, okay. I'm listening. So you think that you're in some kind of a, what?"
"Time loop," Sam firmly tells him. He was confused as heck last time, but he's figured it out now.
"Like Groundhog Day," Dean offers.
"Yes!" Sam seizes on this comparison as a tool for explanation. "Exactly! Like Groundhog Day."

Dean nods and offers a neutral 'uh huh', and Sam is frustrated that his brother doesn't believe him. Dean can only laugh awkwardly and point out that it's a little crazy, even for them. I kind of love that Dean's reactions to what Sam tells him are the same throughout the episode, right down to the wording a lot of the time, but come at different times depending on when and where Sam raises the point, and varying according to how much information Sam gives him. He begins to continue the sentence, but Sam interrupts and adds the 'dingo ate my baby crazy' part for him. Dean is startled, and wonders how Sam knew he was going to say that.

"Because you've said it before, Dean, that's my whole point," Sam frantically explains. Man, he's so freaked out by this. His brother has died twice now, which is the worst thing that possibly could happen to him, but he isn't even getting any time to absorb the enormity of it and grieve, or process, or anything, before the day starts all over again. All he can do is rush to try and stop it this time, every time, somehow, anyhow, whether he understands the hows and whys or not, which he doesn't. And he's completely alone with the fear and the horror and the responsibility because he's the only one that even knows what's happening.

Dean's amusement is fading in the face of how freaked Sam really is, and he is starting to get concerned. Doris arrives with his coffee and the hot sauce, which tumbles off the tray, of course, and Sam catches it without looking or so much as blinking. Doris is amazed and Dean is impressed, admiring Sam's reflexes. "No," says Sam, taking the opportunity to prove his point. "I knew it was going to happen."

Dean's frivolity is long gone. "Okay, look," he soothingly assures his brother, not knowing yet the full story of what is at the heart of Sam's anxiety. As far as Dean knows, all this fretting is simply about the fact of the day looping, and he only has Sam's freakout as evidence of that, even. He's just attempting to soothe based on the incomplete information he has, because that's what Dean does. "I'm sure that there's some sort of an explanation –"

"You're just going to have to go with me on this, all right, Dean?" Sam interrupts, still frantic, and he sounds every inch the baby brother as he continues: "You just have to, you owe me that much!"
"Calm down," Dean soothes, voice low, trying not to draw attention to them.
"Don't tell me to calm down!" Sam loudly snaps, not caring if the entire diner is listening. "I can't calm down! I can't, because…" He still can't say it, stutters to an abrupt halt.
"Because what?" Dean pushes, confused and frustrated.
Sam takes a deep breath and collects himself. "Because you die today, Dean."
Dean is taken aback. "I'm not going to die," he automatically denies, but remembers the deal even as he says it, and hastily adds, "not today."
"Twice now, I've watched you die," Sam insists, fierce, his eyes starting to well up because saying it out loud makes it real, and he hasn't had to truly face up to the awfulness of those experiences until now. "And I can't. I won't do it again. Okay? You're just going to have to believe me. Please."

Sam's distress flips certain switches in Dean every single time. He's in full-blown Big Brother mode long before Sam has finished speaking. "All right," he soothes, holding Sam's eyes, giving him what he wants, which is to be taken seriously. "I still think you're nut, but all right. Whatever this is, we'll figure it out."

And Sam twitches a little and relaxes a little, and takes comfort from that reassurance and is relieved, because he always believes Dean when his brother tells him that everything will be all right, no matter whether Dean believes it or not, and no matter whether Dean even knows what he's talking about or not. Sam needs to hear him say it, so he says it, and can make Sam feel better every time simply by saying the right words with the right amount of reassurance and confidence in his tone. It's big brother magic.

Street. The golden retriever barks as the brothers walk past. Dean bumps into Young Blonde. The removers snip at one another about the desk that won't fit through the door. "And you think this cheesy-ass tourist trap has something to do with it?" Dean recaps.

"Maybe it's the real deal, you know, the magnetic fields, bending space-time, or whatever," Sam guesses, the words tumbling out at speed as he starts to get very worked up again, because he's clutching at straws and knows it, but those straws are all he's got, and he's too busy panicking to be able to stop and think things through rationally, come up with other possibilities. He's just clinging to that Mystery Spot as the only solution he can think of – the one that was already in his mind before all this began.

Dean repeats his remark from last time about it being a little too X-Files for him, his scepticism returning because he really doesn't believe in that Mystery Spot, hasn't experienced the time-loop Sam is describing, and Sam's inability to provide a good explanation or at least working hypothesis isn't making any of it sound any more plausible. Sam explodes. "Well, I don't know how else to explain it, Dean!"

Dean backs down and goes along with Sam's crazy-sounding ramblings once more, suggesting, again, that they go along that evening after the place closes to have a good, long look. Sam instantly nixes that idea, of course, and Dean wonders why. Sam stutters and evades and can't bring himself to say the words, and Dean realises that it is the scene of one of his deaths.

"Blown away, actually," Sam mutters.
"Huh." Dean looks a little taken aback, and reflects on this less-than-pleasant information. "Okay, then, let's go now," he offers as an alternative, walking off once more.

Sam reacts just in time to haul him back out of the road before the car can hit him. Old Mr Picket yells in cantankerously unrepentant fashion as he speeds past – Cashier's advice to drive safely is definitely much needed and never heeded!

Dean gasps and laughs in reaction to the near miss, before catching sight of the look on Sam's face and realising that this was his second death.

"Did it look cool, like in the movies," he grins, classic Dean deflection away from the awkward, flippancy the only way he can deal with this. Plus, he does tend toward black humour at the best of times.
Sam, of course, can't deal with such levity at all. "You peed yourself," he snits.
Dean's smile fades and he frowns. "Of course I peed myself," he grumblingly defends. "Man gets hit by a car, you think he has full control over his bladder? Come on!"

This time around, Dean very carefully and deliberately looks both ways before crossing the road, and Sam follows.

Mystery Spot. All dressed up in their smart suits to play at journalist, the brothers are interviewing the Mystery Spot Proprietor, who is delighted at the notion of a little publicity. Sam takes the lead on the interview, but his people skills seem to have deserted him entirely as he very quickly veers off into Dean-style realms of bluntness, pressing hard for details on anything strange or unusual that might have happened here. Proprietor smilingly banters that it's a Mystery Spot and therefore strange things happen all the time, offering his vague sales pitch in response to Sam's increasingly frustrated demands for further information. Dean interrupts to rather more smoothly ask about the missing man, Dexter Hasselback. Proprietor starts to wonder what kind of article this is going to be, and Sam snaps at him to just answer the question. I kind of think that in addition to being desperate for clues of any kind, Sam can't help but remember that this man shot his brother dead a couple of Tuesdays ago, and that memory is feeding into his attitude here.

Proprietor defends that the police scoured every inch of the place but couldn't find Hasselback, that he never even saw the man, and that this is a family establishment.

Sam loses patience. "Listen to me," he hisses, stepping a little closer, the better to intimidate the man. "There's something weird going on here. Now, do you know anything about it, or not?"

Dean rolls his eyes, seeing that their cover as journalists just lost credibility, and Proprietor gets serious and scared, admitting that he just bought the joint at a closure auction last March. It really is just a tourist trap, and he doesn't know anything that's going to be of the slightest use to them. Dean decides that's enough and steers Sam outside for some air.

Street. "Well, I hate to say it, but that place is exactly what I thought. It's full of crap," Dean notes as the brothers stroll along, back in street wear. So they went back to the motel to change before talking about this?

Sam is still freaking out, since the one lead he had his hopes pinned on has turned out to be a bust, and he doesn't have anything else to go on at all, and Dean has died twice already and solving the Mystery Spot was the only way he could think to stop it happening again. "So what is it then, Dean? What the hell is happening to us?" he wonders, frantic. A better question would be 'what the hell is happening to me?' since he's the one looping, not Dean, but that one-for-all-and-all-for-one attitude is very fitting for this season.

Dean doesn't know what's happening, of course, and still only has Sam's word and anxiety to go on that there's anything happening at all. He pauses in front of the spot where we earlier saw the removal men struggling with that desk, and turns to his brother to break the problem down, miles more clear-headed than Sam right now because he is able to view the problem from the outside, objective, whereas Sam is stuck in the middle of it, a recurring nightmare without end.

"So, every day I die," he clarifies. "And that's when you wake up again, right?" Sam agrees that this is the case, yes. "So let's just make sure I don't die," Dean suggests, reasonably enough. "If I make it to tomorrow, then maybe the loop stops and we can figure all this out."

From the look on Sam's face, he hadn't reasoned that far ahead, he's been too busy freaking out about the fact that any of this is happening at all. He is comforted by the suggestion, so Dean continues that they should just grab some takeout and head back to the motel, lay low until midnight, and Sam nods his agreement, looking all of five years old, scared and hurt and hopeful all rolled into one.

Dean turns to continue walking, suggesting Chinese takeout, whereupon that large, heavy desk seen earlier lands on his head and squashes him flat. There's even a cartoon squelching sound, which is very ick. Sam gasps and looks up to see the two removal men gaping at him, holding onto a broken rope.

The camera pans up from Dean's feet, sticking out from under the desk like the Wicked Witch of the West, over to Sam, just standing there hopelessly, too punch drunk to even react to the gruesomeness of his brother's latest death and already knowing that he is going to have to go through all of this all over again yet another time.

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam wakes up. Dean sits tying his bootlaces, yet again. "Rise and shine, Sammy!"

Unable to face this again, Sam slowly lies back down and tries to breathe.

Diner. Sam's just sitting there staring at Dean with a hopeless look on his face as Dean repeats his "I still think you're nut, but all right. Whatever this is, we'll figure it out," speech from last time. Sam thanks him, but it's probably less comforting second time around.

"So," Dean starts, trying to rationalise, which we haven't seen Sam doing yet; he's been too stuck on the how and the freak-out. Dean's totally interviewing Sam as he would a witness in a case, here, and it's very effective. "If you're stuck in Groundhog Day, why? What's behind it?"
"Well, first I thought it was the Mystery Spot, but now I'm not so sure," Sam wearily admits.
"What do we do?" Dean prompts, and I love how he's so gently guiding Sam through his shellshock and coaxing information out of him, because Sam seems incapable of processing from one thought to the next on his own at the moment.
"We keep you breathing." Sam repeats Dean's own suggestion from the last loop back at him, latching onto it as the only possible solution in sight. "Try to make it to tomorrow, I mean, it's the only thing I can think of."
"Shouldn't be too hard," Dean reassuringly shrugs.
Sam snorts. "Yeah, right. Dean, I've watched you die a few times now, and I can't ever seem to stop it."
"Well, nothing's set in stone," Dean comfortingly assures him.

Confirming with Sam that he orders the same thing every day, Dean calls over to the counter to change his bacon order to sausages, and then turns back to Sam with a smile. "See? Different day already."

Damn, he's got that big-brother-making-everything-okay vibe again, and Sam takes heart from it every single time, and it kills me. Dean still has no evidence whatsoever that there's anything funky going on here at all, other than Sam's word and distress. But Sam's word and Sam's distress is enough for him, and he'll work the case based on that evidence alone, just as he has every single time since Sam first told him he'd had a premonition, way back in Home.

"See, if you and I decide that I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die," Dean confidently asserts. Anvilicious as hell, given the theme of the season and Dean's rapidly approaching date with hell's billing department, but the perfect soundbite for fangirls to seize hold of and squee over – and, of course, to provide hope and reassurance for Sam.

Doris arrives with Dean's breakfast, barely ten seconds after he changed the order. Man, those sausages were put together quick – I hope they're cooked properly! Dean skewers a sausage, takes a big bite as evidence that he has changed the scenario and starts to chew, and Sam chuckles, reassured in spite of himself…but then Dean starts to choke.

Motel. Tuesday morning. Clearly neither Sam nor anyone else in that diner knows the Heimlich Manoeuvre, as Sam wakes up to Asia once more, having failed to keep Dean alive yet again.

Bathroom. Covered in soap, Dean leans around the shower curtain to call out in disbelief, "You mean we can't even go out for breakfast?"

I love the domesticity of this all over again, shouting to one another from separate rooms while getting washed and dressed for the day.

"You'll thank me when it's Wednesday!" Sam determinedly calls back.
"Whatever that means," Dean shrugs, returning to his shower.

Moments later, Sam is alarmed to hear a yell and a thud, as Dean slips in the shower.

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam leaps out of bed.

Later. Dean and Sam sit at the table in their room eating tacos for breakfast. Dean frowns. "These tacos taste funny to you?"

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam wakes. I still can't get over the way he so gracefully sits up like that the moment he wakes. Me, I tend to turn the alarm off and snuggle back down for a bit, while I slowly regain consciousness. Granted, the cat's habit of sleeping on my head probably contributes to this. Sam goes from horizontal and asleep to vertical and awake, just like that.

Dean plugs his electric razor into the socket and is electrocuted. Man, that one is nasty, because he was electrocuted before and almost died that time, as well.

It's noticeable that we are not seeing Sam's reactions any more, or his attempts at changing the sequence of events each time, but the whole 'keeping Dean alive till Wednesday' thing clearly isn't working. This is at least three Tuesdays in a row that they haven't even left the motel, and Dean has still died in increasingly random ways. We have already seen Sam working himself up into more and more of a fever pitch of desperation every time, so it is now left to our imaginations to picture just how the continuing loop and his continual failure is affecting his downward spiral.

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam wakes and leaps out of bed.

Mystery Spot. Sam attacks the wall with an axe; the place is already pretty comprehensively demolished, and there's more than a hint of mania in his eyes. He has completely lost it, coming right to the source of the only possible lead he has on what could conceivably be causing this and taking the most direct action he can come up with because nothing else has worked, so why not? But he still isn't thinking, only reacting: there have been a lot of cycles now and he hasn't come up with any new possibilities, has simply returned to his initial suspect when he proved unable to resolve the problem the only other way he has tried – an alternative solution that he didn't even come up with himself. He's just repeating the same loops over and over, changing only his and Dean's actions and activities in an attempt to prevent the same modes of death happening over again, and not looking at anything else beyond that, apparently completely incapable of taking a step back to try and view the bigger picture. But no matter what he does, something always gets to Dean, and there is an escalating element of farce about the whole situation, as if someone or something is mocking his efforts. That fact can't be helping his state of mind any, but it's a clue, right there in front of him, if only he was in any fit state to recognise it.

Nearby, a nervous and uncomfortable Dean sits alongside Proprietor, who is bound and gagged with duct tape, and assures him that everybody is fine and nobody is going to get hurt. "Sammy?" he calls, in conciliatory fashion, because his little brother has completely lost it and it's never a good idea to rile a basket case. "Maybe you should drop the axe and let this guy go. What do you say?"

Sam is so far past rational thinking it isn't funny. I love his progression through this episode, moving from confusion to comprehension, through shock and resolution, and now descending into mania. He fervently rants that something has to be going on here and he intends to find out what. Dean points out that the place is already pretty torn up and suggests that it's time to give it a rest. Sam refuses and keeps swinging his axe at the wall. Dean clearly thinks his brother has gone a little insane, and goes to take the axe out of his hands.

The camera stays with Proprietor, as the argument continues out of shot. Dean asks for the axe, Sam refuses to give it to him, Dean tries to take it, Sam tries to pull it back, there's scuffling…and then blood spurts all over Proprietor's face and he starts screaming in horror behind the duct tape. Still off camera, Sam calls his brother's name in a very small and broken voice as we hear the thud of a body hitting the ground.

That one's horrible, as well, having Sam be the one to kill his brother so very directly – the stuff of both their worst nightmares – but neither he nor the audience is given the chance to absorb and react to the magnitude and horror of this latest development. That's the point of this episode, that Sam experiences Dean's death so many times and in so many ways but he never gets the chance to take it in and grieve, not until much later. He's kept constantly on the back foot, constantly moving, frantic, so busy trying to change the loop that he's lost his grip on reason and reality. It's Sam's typical tunnel vision taken to an extreme.

And, again, there's that strong element of farce here, and once you know who is behind all this, it all makes perfect sense: farce is practically his calling card. And, hey, wouldn't it be awesome if the DVD extras for this season included a clip of the JJs acting out this sequence out of camera shot?

At this point, I start to expect Sam to resort to tying Dean to the bed and maybe sedating him for the day. The motel would probably burn down!

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam wakes and jumps out of bed.

Diner. "Drive safely now, Mr Picket," Cashier cheerfully cautions the old man, who bumps into Sam on his way out. Ooh, and once you know about it, you can blatantly see Sam pick his pocket as he passes.

"Can't stay unless you order something, Cal," Doris warns. Cal pushes what little loose change he possesses at her and orders coffee, as the brothers sit in their usual booth. This time around, the camera angle shows us a middle-aged businessman sitting at the counter, who I don't remember noticing in the previous diner loops – he's been background, never coming into focus until now.

"Hey, Tuesday, pig 'n a poke," Dean observes, yet again, eyes on the specials board.

In response, a sullen and despondent Sam places Mr Picket's car keys on the table. Nonplussed, Dean wonders what they are, and Sam shrugs that they belong to the old man. "Trust me, you don't want him behind the wheel," he boredly explains. Viewers now imagine Sam compiling a mental To Do list, which grows longer each time around, of all the little details he has to take care of to prevent any of Dean's previous deaths repeating.

Dean is baffled. Doris comes to take the order, and Dean orders the special, side of bacon, and a coffee, as usual. Sam turns wearily to the waitress. "Hey, Doris, what I'd like is for you to log in some more hours at the archery range. You're a terrible shot."

So…does that mean we didn't get to see the loop where Doris shot Dean with a bow and arrow. Enquiring minds would really like to know the sequence of events there!

Doris is bemused. Dean offers her an equally puzzled shrug. Sam continues to wallow in despondency.

"Okay, so you think you're caught in some kind of what again?" Dean turns back to Sam.
"Time loop," Sam mutters, beyond bored of explaining this every time.
"Like Groundhog Day," Dean offers.
Sam isn't having that conversation again. "It doesn't matter. There's no way to stop it," he grumps.

Dean points out how grumpy his brother is, having no way to understand what Sam is going through, since he isn't experiencing the loops with him.

"Yeah, I am. You wanna know why?" Sam snips. "Because this is the hundredth Tuesday in a row I've been through, and it never stops. Ever. So, yeah: I'm a little grumpy." Dean frowns, trying to understand. "Hot sauce," Sam tells him, as Doris approaches the table, catching the bottle as it falls without skipping a beat, bored rigid with the monotony of this day.

"Nice reflexes," Dean remarks.
"I knew it was going to happen, Dean," Sam counters. "I know everything that's going to happen."
"You don't know everything," Dean immediately protests.
"Yeah, I do," insists Sam.
"Yeah, right," Dean snorts, but this time Sam says it along with him. "Nice guess," they continue, in unison.
"It wasn't a guess," Sam adds, alone.

"Right, you're a mindreader," they chorus again, Dean starting to get a little wigged out. "Cut it out, Sam," he continues, and Sam continues to say the words with him. "Sam! You think you're being funny, but you're being really, really childish." They lean forward to glare one another in the eye as they continue: "Sam Winchester wears makeup. Sam Winchester cries his way through sex. Sam Winchester keeps a ruler by the bed, and every morning when he wakes up…"

Man, you can just picture the two of them as teenagers. We already knew about the prank wars – now add this kind of behaviour to the picture, and factor in John's frequent absences, the constant movement from town to town…

Dean breaks it up, having had enough already. "That's not all," Sam tells him, gesturing with his head at the assorted townsfolk over at the counter as he gossips that Randy the cashier is skimming from the register, and Judge Myers puts on a furry bunny outfit at night. Judge Myers overhears this, and drops his milkshake in shock. Dean is startled. Cal, meanwhile, Sam continues, is going to rob Tony the mechanic on the way home. He certainly has got to know this town and its inhabitants well during the course of his hundred Tuesdays. I wonder if it's ever occurred to him to actually go the Groundhog Day route and try to right every wrong he discovers, such as Cal's robbery of Tony the mechanic. I doubt it. He doesn't seem able to see anything other than Dean and his many deaths and his own inability to prevent them each time.

"What's your point?" a mildly alarmed Dean wants to know.
"My point is that I've lived through every possible Tuesday," Sam bites out. "I have watched you die every possible way. I've ripped apart the Mystery Spot, burnt it down, tried everything I know to save your life, and I can't. No matter what I do, you die. And then I wake up. And then it's Tuesday again."

Street. Sam narrates the journey as the brothers walk along. "Dog." The golden retriever barks as they pass, while Dean states that there has to be some way out of this. "Where's my dang keys," Sam hopelessly intones, a beat before old Mr Picket repeats his words, searching his pockets. "Excuse me," Sam continues, as Young Blonde bumps into Dean and likewise excuses herself.

Dean notes that Young Blonde is kind of cute, then has a sudden thought and turns to Sam. "Hey, all the times we've walked down this street, I ever do this?" He turns back and calls after Young Blonde, running to catch her up. Sam frowns, puzzled at Dean's going off the script like this, and murmurs to himself that no, he hasn't.

Sam is the only one looping, which means that the events of the day play out exactly the same for every other person in this town on every loop. The only way anything changes is if Sam changes it, whether physically, by being in a different place at a different time, or by providing different verbal cues to the people he interacts with. That means that Dean has the most scope of anyone for changing his pattern each day, because he interacts with Sam almost exclusively and is so finely attuned to his brother, as well as having the well-honed instincts of a hunter. He spends his life putting together random and vague fragments of clues to solve a case; this is no different, except that the witness he has providing those bizarre-sounding clue fragments is Sam. But it's also important to remember that Sam is providing different information to Dean each time, depending on how much he discloses and how fed up he is, and Dean can only know what Sam has told him on any given Tuesday. This specific sequence of events has brought Dean to a different conclusion than any previous.

Dean catches up with the girl, takes one of the papers she has clutched to her chest, and returns to Sam. "Hundred Tuesdays, you never bothered to check what she was holding in her hands?" He holds up a missing poster for Dexter Hasselback – the girl is his daughter.

Sam's tunnel vision again – his world has shrunk to a pinpoint since it started looping: all he can see is Dean and Dean's many deaths, and he's been so busy strategising possible ways out of them that he completely forgot to work the actual case they came here for in search of a resolution to the time loop itself, other than his abortive focus on the Mystery Spot. After all, two inexplicable events in one town is no coincidence, and will provide more evidence for triangulation than just one.

Sam takes off down the street to interview the girl further, and Dean is left standing alone alongside that oft-seen golden retriever, which growls and barks at him, as usual. Dean, for some reason and since he has nothing better to do while he waits for Sam, decides to make friends and goes over to pat the dog. He moves out of camera shot as he speaks, so that we hear, but don't see, the dog abruptly rip his throat out. Yikes. Bang goes yet another Tuesday.

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam wakes up and leaps out of bed with a sense of purpose. This time, for the first time, he has what might be a solid lead to investigate, and it is striking that it was Dean who provided that lead, rather than Sam himself having figured anything out.

Diner. Dean is eating breakfast while Sam pours over the laptop conducting further research into Dexter Hasselback's background and disappearance. In the background, the Businessman seen sitting at the counter in the last diner loop finishes his breakfast and leaves. According to his daughter, Sam exposits, Hasselback was quite the journalist, writing columns in magazines and keeping a blog, writing about tourist attractions such as Mystery Spots and UFO crash sites; he got his kicks out of debunking them, and has already put four out of business. He shows Dean Hasselback's blog, in which he proclaims himself a 'truth warrior'. Dean scoffs that pompous schmuck would be more like it. "Tell me about it," Sam snorts. "I've read everything the guy's ever written, he must have weighed a ton he was so full of himself."

"When'd you have time to do all this research?" Dean wonders, which suggests that there has been at least one loop between the last one and this during which Sam has carried out the bulk of his research. And it doesn't seem like Sam has gone into the whole time loop explanation with Dean this time around, has just gone back to working the Hasselback job as if there's nothing else going on, because he has now set his sights on resolving that case as the best possibility of resolving the time loop and thus saving Dean's life. That's very John, to provide information only on a need-to-know basis when he thinks he has a target in sight and knows what he's doing and doesn't want to waste time filling anyone else in on what he has planned. Besides, anything he tells Dean his brother will only have forgotten again by the time they repeat the loop, if it comes to that, and if Sam can solve it Dean need never know. But that's still very John-ish reasoning, and Sam isn't remembering the fact that he has so far only been able to work this problem even halfway effectively when he has shared that work with his brother, no matter how much time he has to waste convincing him each time that the time loop is real.

As they rise to leave, Dean chuckles and remarks that it's funny that this guy should spend all his time crapping on Mystery Spots and then vanish into one. "Kind of poetic, you know, like just desserts," he muses.

Sam snorts and agrees, and glances across to the counter, where his eyes fall on the remains of Businessman's breakfast, and he freezes with shock. Dean and Cashier both wonder why he's just standing there staring at the counter, and Dean comes back over to ask what's wrong.

"The guy has maple syrup for the past hundred Tuesdays, all of a sudden he's having strawberry?" Sam mutters, a lightbulb coming on in his head as this incongruity comes together with what Dean just said to suggest a startling possibility. And, again, despite not knowing anything at all about the situation, in spite of being on the outside of what Sam is going through, it is Dean who has managed to provide a vital clue, just by being Dean and reaching his own conclusions regarding what little he does know. It underlines once again how heavily co-dependent these boys really are, as well as Sam's lack of perspective on this job and inability to take a step back and really see the bigger picture.

Dean jokes about it being a free country and a man having the right to choose his own syrup, but Sam is still caught on the discrepancy, because nothing in this loop should change unless Sam changes it by providing different prompts for the people around him to respond to. "Not in this diner, not today," he insists. "Nothing in this place ever changes. Ever. Except me."

Motel. Tuesday morning. Asia. Sam snaps awake, and for the very first time we haven't seen the mode of death that led to the reset, perhaps symbolic of how they have all long since merged into one huge waking nightmare for Sam, each one indistinguishable from the rest there have been so many now. Sam takes a moment to stare at the ceiling, processing what he knows and the conclusions he has drawn and what he needs to do today, and then sits up, his expression hardening into purposeful resolve.

"Rise and shine, Sammy!" Dean cheerfully greets him, sitting on the other bed tying his bootlaces. Sam looks at his oblivious brother, who he has seen die so many times now, and his expression hardens further. Not again: you can see him forming the resolution. He is not going to let it happen again, not now, not when he's so sure he's finally figured it out.

Diner. Businessman has ordered maple syrup again. Sam sits glowering at his back while Dean eats his breakfast.

"So, you think you're caught in some kind of what again?" Dean asks, for the nth time.
"Eat your breakfast," Sam instructs by way of response, sparing a quick glance for Dean but snapping his eyes right back to Businessman at once. It's so John, again, holding all the cards close to his chest because this is his hunt, and Dean is just along for the ride, and he doesn't want to waste time explaining. Sam hated that attitude so much when he was on the receiving end of it, and here he is doing the exact same thing.

Businessman finishes his breakfast and leaves the diner. Sam immediately picks up a large paper bag and follows. Dean calls after to ask what's in the bag, but Sam just walks out without a word or even a backward glance. And it might be something he got from his Dad, perhaps, but that's very Sam: once he's decided on a course of action he never pauses or hesitates or looks back, he just goes for it, unswerving and resolute. Dean quickly drops a few notes on the table to pay for his breakfast and follows.

Different street. Businessman walks along picking his teeth. Sam abruptly grabs him and shoves him up against a fence, pressing a stake against his throat – it's the same kind of stake used to supposedly kill the Trickster when they came up against it, which is a clue. Richard Speight Junior's name in the credits was also a clue, for those sharp-witted enough to spot it and remember who he played in his last appearance on the show.

"I know who you are. Or should I say what?" Sam menaces. Catching up, Dean is alarmed, having not the faintest idea what his brother is doing or why. Businessman pleads his innocence very convincingly, but Sam is having none of it. "It took me a hell of a long time, but I got it," he snarls. "It's your MO that gave you away: going after pompous jerks, giving them their just desserts. Your kind loves that, don't they?"

And we remember again that Sam made this breakthrough based on something Dean said, a fact that reinforces just how co-dependent these boys are. He might never have figured it out if he didn't have Dean around to bounce ideas off, no matter how much or how little Dean actually knows about the situation in any given loop.

What Dean knows in this particular loop is next to nothing, we should bear in mind for future reference.

While Businessman stammers his agreement to whatever craziness Sam is talking, Dean glances nervously around to see if anyone is looking, and suggests that maybe Sam should put the stake down. From where he's standing his little brother went to bed perfectly normal only to wake up the next day babbling nonsense about time loops, and is now randomly attacking some stranger he just saw in a diner they'd never been in before. Sam fiercely refuses and returns his attention to his prisoner. "There's only one creature powerful enough to do what you're doing," he deduces. "Making reality out of nothing, sticking people in time loops. In fact, you pretty much have to be a god. You'd have to be a Trickster."

Businessman starts to bleat about his name and his wife and his children and his job selling ad space, but Sam is having none of it, roaring at him not to lie, huge and furious and intimidating. "I know what you are! We've killed one of your kind before."

Giving up the charade, Businessman promptly morphs into the very same Trickster that the brothers encountered in Tall Tales, and smirks that actually, they didn't. Sam is shocked: he'd figured out the Trickster part, but hadn't expected this development. Dean is even more shocked, being on the outside of the whole thing, and with Sam not having shared any of his deductions with him. By now, Sam's tight, tight focus on solving this nightmare and saving Dean is even excluding Dean himself, who is reduced to mere spectator rather than partner. But, just like John, in spite of the non-disclosure policy, Sam still expects his brother to follow his lead blindly rather than stand in the way of what from the outside is completely inexplicable behaviour. He's lucky Dean trusts him so much.

"Why are you doing this?" Sam grits, furious, stake still pressed into the Trickster's neck.
"You're joking, right?" the Trickster snorts. "You chuckleheads tried to kill me last time. Why wouldn't I do this?"
"And Hasselback, what about him?" Dean asks, because that part, at least, he knows all about: it's the job they came here to work. In the absence of any other useful information, Dean focuses on the saving people part of his mission brief.
"That putz?" the Trickster shrugs. "He said he didn't believe in wormholes, so I dropped him in one."

And, presumably, he is long gone and there is no way to save him, no question of reversing the effect, just another personal tragedy in someone's life that the show dances around the fringes of. This man's daughter is searching and grieving and will never know what happened to him, but Sam can't worry about any of that; his world has contracted to a pinpoint.

"Then you guys showed up," the Trickster continues, laughing. "I made you the second you hit town."
"So this is fun for you?" Sam bites out, fingers tightening on the stake, because he has been made to experience the worst day of his life over and over and over, more than a hundred times, just to amuse this creature. "Killing Dean over and over again?"

Dean's eyebrows shoot up in surprise; clearly Sam hadn't told him about that little detail yet in this loop. Watching Dean's reactions in the background of this entire scene is interesting, as he keeps quiet and listens and puts together what he can about what's been going on.

"One: yes. It is fun," the Trickster agrees, readily enough. "And two: this is so not about killing Dean. This joke? Is on you, Sam. Watching your brother die, every day. Forever."
"You son of a bitch," Sam grates, almost incandescent with rage.
The Trickster smiles. "How long will it take you to realise? You can't save your brother. No matter what."

Man, Dean's forlorn expression on hearing those words is heartbreaking. Every time he or Sam manage to scrape together the tiniest fragment of hope, or at least of peace, someone comes along and stomps all over it.

People are the Trickster's playground. He liked Sam and Dean when he met them last time, and maybe still likes them enough to not just summarily squish them like bugs, which he totally could, but at the end of the day this is about revenge and about entertainment, plain and simple. He's teaching Sam a painful lesson because it's fun for him. He saw the brothers, with whom he has a history, instantly picked up on Sam's raw dread and desperate need to save his brother, and saw an opportunity to be cruel. Even now, saying these words, he's still playing, still being cruel.

The Trickster goes after pompous jerks, gives them their just desserts – so what does his targeting of Sam tell us about how a creature with his kind of power views Sam's efforts to achieve the impossible?

"I kill you this all ends now," Sam points out, pressing the stake deeper into the Trickster's neck.

The Trickster is undeniably wigged about that stake – he is definitely in some danger here – but although vulnerable, he still has powerful cards up his sleeve. He tries to talk his way out of the situation at first, because that's who he is. "Look, I was just playing around. You can't take a joke? Fine. You're out of it. Tomorrow, you wake up, it'll be Wednesday. I swear."

"You're lying," Sam insists.
"If I am, you know where to find me," the Trickster shrugs. "Having pancakes at the diner."

Sam thinks about it for a moment, and the Sam of seasons one and two might have taken this deal, but this isn't that Sam. This is the Sam of season three, who has spent months consciously toughening up and making hard decisions. This is the Sam who has watched his brother die every single day for over a hundred Tuesdays now, and who isn't prepared to allow even the smallest chance of it happening again.

"No. Easier to just kill you," he decides.
"Sorry, kiddo, can't have that," the Trickster chirps, and snaps his fingers.

Motel. Morning. Sam wakes up to the radio alarm, and immediately realises that the wrong song is playing. It's Huey Lewis And The News. Hee. We'll be back in time, the radio sings as Sam sits up, eyes wide with disbelief.

Dean is already over in the little bathroom. "What, you going to sleep all day?" he calls.
"No Asia!" Sam gasps, processing furiously.
"Yeah, I know. This station sucks," Dean sighs, the significance passing over his head completely.
Sam looks at the clock and it reads Wednesday, and he is elated. "It's Wednesday!" he crows.
"Yeah. Which usually comes after Tuesday," Dean deadpans, unimpressed by the magnitude of this since he isn't the one who just lived through over a hundred unbearable Tuesdays and remembers them all.

Dean tells Sam to turn the radio off, but Sam instead over-enthuses as he grabs his shirt and pulls it on – over the t-shirt he was sleeping in, no washing or anything, he's in such a hurry – that this is the most beautiful song he's ever heard.

"Geez, how many Tuesdays did you have?" Dean frowns.
"I don't know, I lost count," Sam admits, and then his brain catches up and he realises that Dean does remember something of the time loop. "Wait, what do you remember?"
"I remember you were pretty whacked out of it yesterday, and then I remember running into the Trickster," Dean reports. "But, no, that's about it."

The upshot of all this is that Wednesday Dean is pretty much entirely uninformed about what has been happening, because on that final Tuesday loop Sam told him next to nothing. He only knows that the time loop involved his own multiple deaths because it came up in Sam's argument with the Trickster; he's got no details to aid his understanding of the situation whatsoever.

A delighted Sam tells Dean to pack his stuff so they can get the hell out of town immediately. Dean pouts at the thought of no breakfast, but Sam insists: no breakfast.

Parking lot. For some reason, Dean is packing weapons into a duffle bag for the journey. He slings the bag over his shoulder and closes the trunk just as someone slinks up behind him. "You sure we should just let the Trickster go?" he asks, assuming it is Sam. But then he turns around to find deadbeat Cal standing behind him, holding a gun in shaking hand. Cal, who Sam already told us robbed Tony the mechanic yesterday, a desperate man prepared to resort to violence in order to take what he wants.

"Give me your wallet," Cal commands.
Dean raises his hands, slowly and carefully. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. Just relax," he cautions.
"I am relaxed!" Cal shouts.
"Okay," Dean nods, soothing tone engaged. "Nobody wants this to end the wrong way. Let's just talk about it a sec."

Motel. Sam is packing his and Dean's bags ready to leave when he hears a gunshot from the parking lot, and his head snaps around in alarm as he anxiously yells for his brother.

Parking lot. Cal legs it, just as Sam sprints down the steps to find Dean lying on the ground beside the Impala, blood still spurting from the bullet hole in the middle of his chest. Sam just about stops breathing as he hurries across, murmuring 'no' over and over. "Hey, hey, come on. Not today," he implores his brother, gathering him up into his arms yet again and gently shaking him. "Not today, this isn't supposed to happen today. Come on."

There's no response from Dean, who lies limp in Sam's arms, already dead. Conditioned to the reset now, after more than a hundred loops, Sam screws his eyes tight shut and waits for a few ragged breaths, heart pounding. But nothing happens. He opens his eyes again, horror and despair and grief already warring for dominance as the awful truth slowly dawns on him that this is it, and it's for real, no reset and no way back. For the first time in all the deaths he's experienced, he has time for the devastation to actually hit home and sink in. "I'm supposed to wake up," he whimpers, and viewers' hearts break along with his yet again.

The camera pans back on Sam, clutching Dean's body and crying, kneeling on the ground beside the Impala.

Night. The Impala speeds along a typical Supernatural deserted road.

Sam is at the wheel, wearing his very best Glower of Grim and Angry Resolution. His cellphone rings, but he lets it run to voicemail, and the several messages that Bobby leaves provide us with commentary and timeframe for the little montage that follows: a summary of Sam's time alone after Dean's death. The clips of Sam hunting are reused from previous episodes, which was a time-and-money-saver for the production team, no doubt, but the glimpses of Sam's life alone are all new, and heartbreaking.

"Sam? It's Bobby," the first message begins, brightly enough. "Heard about that demon thing you took care of in Death Valley. Nice job. It's been about three months since we talked, though. Be nice to hear your voice. Give us a call. I'm here."

And so, in about 25 seconds flat, Sam's post-Dean status is established: he has plunged straight back into the hunt with a vengeance, cutting himself off from all human ties, including and maybe especially Bobby, who has been a father figure to both brothers but to Dean especially and who now represents everything Sam has cut out of his life in the absence of his brother. And it has been three months, at least, since Dean's death.

Three months is a long time for Sam to live and hunt in isolation, especially coming on the heels of witnessing his brother's death over a hundred times and over a hundred different ways. That's a lot of bloody images to have imprinted on his mind for the rest of his life.

This is the point at which I start to wish that the episode were even just a longer than it is, so that we could afford to spend a bit more time focusing on the immediate aftermath of Dean's death, and Sam's reaction and mental state. Morbid though it might seem, enquiring minds would really like to know all the gory details, such as whether Sam went with burial or cremation in the end. Burning seems pretty standard for hunters, after all, but since Sam already knows full well that his brother's disembodied spirit isn't going to be wandering the earth this time, burial would also be safe.

However, the jarring transition from Sam Before to Sam After is an effective narrative tool, I suppose, all the more so for not showing us his slide down that slippery slope. We've already seen more than enough to understand how he got here, because he was already well on his way during those hundred-plus days of looping.

In the parking lot of some random motel we see a grim-faced Sam opening up the Impala's trunk to fiddle about in the weapons compartment, and man. He's re-organised it. He's imposed order on it. He's installed a foam weapons tray to neatly fit every item into, just like the one John had in his truck and possibly even the same one re-shaped to fit, depending on what happened to John's truck after his death. All trace of the usual organised chaos of Dean's slapdash clutter has been obliterated, as if Sam can't bear even the smallest reminder of what he has lost.

Sam carefully lets himself into his motel room and eases out of his jacket to reveal a bloody t-shirt beneath. Still wearing that painfully grim, empty expression, he cuts the t-shirt off to reveal a neat little bullet hole two or three inches beneath his left nipple, which makes me wonder exactly what he's been up to. The boys don't run afoul of firearms all that often – at least until this episode, which admittedly has seen a fair amount of gunfire. Bobby referred to a 'demon thing' in his message, but demons don't use guns, as a rule – they don't need to. Neither do most supernatural opponents, come to that. It seems Sam has been keeping himself very busy in more very dangerous ways than one.

Sam pours hydrogen peroxide over the wound, and then gingerly uses tweezers to pull the bullet out of his own body. And then he sews himself up, indifferent to the pain, way beyond caring about anything that happens to him. It's pretty grim and gruesome stuff, straight out of fanfic, and I find myself wanting to see a scene of one of the brothers patching up the other more than ever now. I mean: it's implied that that's what they do a lot of the time, but we've never seen it onscreen or even had it mentioned definitively as something that has happened.

Sam sits at a table, alone in his motel room, mechanically eating chicken. Eating because it has to be done, not because he takes any pleasure in it. There's a burger sitting untouched on the other side of the table. That would be Dean's, if he was still alive, and the thought of Sam still ordering food for his dead brother three months later is just so sad and pathetic it hurts. The burger remains untouched later on, as Sam sits methodically cleaning the weapons in painful, ice-cold silence, while Bobby leaves another message on his voicemail.

"Sam? It's Bobby again," he begins. "Look, I'm worried about you. Just tell me you're not sitting alone somewhere obsessing over this damn Trickster. Call me, Sam. We can find it together."

And now all of a sudden my heart is breaking for Bobby, who loved Dean like a son and is grieving for him, and who is worried about Sam, who he also loves like a son, but who has completely shut him out. As he speaks, we see that Sam is sitting opposite a wall covered in his research, which is, as Bobby suspected, all about the Trickster, and which is all very carefully and oh-so neatly pinned across the wall in military lines with clinical precision.

Sam always has had obsessive compulsive tendencies, and he always has been neater than Dean, and now that his life has fallen apart so completely and he has lost every single thing he ever cared about, those tendencies have been allowed full reign. Sam needs to feel he has control over his life, always has, but he didn't need this level of control while Dean was alive because his brother made him feel safe, protected and shielded him in every way imaginable, as much as was humanly possible. Dean was loud and messy, vibrant and full of life, and, no matter how irritating and obnoxious he could be, he made Sam feel warm and safe and loved. Now, though, now that Dean is gone, taking with him everything Sam had left that was good in his life, Sam clearly needs this level of control over every tiniest detail, needs this meticulous precision, as something to focus his mind and give at least the illusion of control over what little he has left: the only way he can keep himself going, keep himself from falling apart completely.

"No one man should take something like this on alone, you hear me?" Bobby continues, and we remember John, who took his hunt for the Yellow-Eyed Demon on alone as a very personal crusade and refused all offers of help, alienating just about every friend he made along the way. Sam is his father's son, all right, but John at least had his sons to keep him grounded. The Sam we are seeing here has gone far beyond John's level of ruthless obsession; he's closer to Gordon's brand of dangerously unstable, maybe even exceeding it, in his relentless pursuit of the Trickster, consumed by the darkness within more completely than John ever was.

"Bye the way, that vampire nest in Austin – hell of a job," Bobby finishes. He's clearly trying hard to keep tabs on Sam as best he can, from afar, is trying so hard to re-connect, to help, but getting nothing back. Kudos to him for persevering, though, for not giving up on Sam even after all this time and silence.

Sam wakes, and sits bolt upright in his king-sized bed, the bedcovers as straight and neat as if he's just been lying there on his back all night without so much as twitching. Just another sign of how lifeless and empty his life has become. He's all alone in his silent single room, with his meticulously neat research pinned to the wall, and we see him straightening the bed covers with scrupulous precision, padding into the bathroom to clean his teeth - oh, and he's still using that hot pink toothbrush that was probably bought by Dean - the toothpaste tube immaculate, and gazing at himself in the mirror with dead eyes. This is what Sam has become, all alone in the world, without Dean's loud, brash, colourful influence to keep him grounded and keep him warm. Sam had so much going for him once upon a time, and it wasn't that long ago, but his life has imploded into ruin since then.

Way back in Wendigo, Dean warned Sam of the dangers of allowing his thirst for revenge to dominate his life, having seen what it had done to John and not wanting to see it happen to Sam as well. And this is it: this is exactly what Dean's steadfast support saved Sam from back then, only worse, because Sam's overall situation has deteriorated so much since those early days and he's been through so much already.

"Sam, it's Bobby," begins a third and final message. "I found it."

Mystery Spot. Bobby sits cross-legged on the floor with a symbol painted beneath him and some candles and other paraphernalia set up all around, leafing through a dusty old tome. Sam arrives, and stands silently in the doorway.

"It's good to see you, boy." Bobby takes one look and rushes over to wrap his arms around Sam and hug him tight, and he cares so damn much, but Sam is so far gone he can't even respond, just stands there like a statue.

"What are we doing here, Bobby." Sam gets right down to business. Bobby points out that this is the last place they're sure the Trickster worked its magic. Sam doesn't see how this is relevant. Bobby explains that he's found a summoning ritual to bring the Trickster here, to them. Bobby looks hopeful, but Sam's shuttered expression of angry suspicion hasn't so much as flickered.

This is John, furiously shouting that hunting the Yellow-Eyed Demon comes first, before everything. This is Gordon, hating the things that killed his sister so much he can no longer see good from bad or right from wrong. This is Sam, willing to do anything and everything to find the creature that took his brother from him, when Dean was all he had left in the world to hold on to, no longer able to see anything beyond his burning need to either get his brother back or avenge him, no matter what it takes.

A bunch of obsessed, revenge-driven sociopaths, Bela once described hunters, and it has to be said: that definition does fit an awful lot of them, those without any human connections left to keep them grounded, at least. Except for Bobby, who is alone and yet always seems the most grounded of them all, somehow. Sam, though, Sam is long gone now, and it is awful to see. Dean would be horrified. And so would John.

Blood is what the ritual requires, Bobby resignedly tells Sam. Sam doesn't so much as twitch as he asks how much blood. He doesn't ask what kind of blood; it is tacitly understood that it must be human. "Ritual says near a gallon," Bobby says, eyes fixed on Sam's face to gauge his reaction. "And it's got to be fresh, too." Again, Sam doesn't so much as twitch as he coldly translates that this means they have to bleed a person dry. "And it's got to be tonight," Bobby adds. "Or not for another fifty years."

This is where viewers start to smell a rat, this 'tonight or not for another fifty years' thing, because honestly: the coincidence of Bobby just happening to find this ritual just in time for the one conjunction or whatever in fifty years that will make it possible? Nah. There's definitely something fishy going on here.

"Then let's go get some," Sam decides, glacially calm, turning back toward the exit. Bobby doesn't move, just stares at him, and Sam turns back, wearing cold, empty, mad eyes. Psychotic eyes.
"You break my heart, kid," Bobby whispers. He's known Sam since he was a little boy, watched him grow up. Seeing what he has become is unbearable.
"What?" Sam can't take in his meaning, because all Sam can see is the path he has chosen to follow, no deviation, doubt or hesitation allowed, and the path he has chosen is pursuit of the Trickster regardless of the cost, to him or anyone else.

So where does this path end? Dean sacrificed his own life for Sam's, but what we're seeing here – have already seen on previous occasions – is Sam's willingness to sacrifice other peoples' lives, innocent lives, in cold-blood, for his brother's sake. That's chilling. Just another look at the darkness that lurks within Sammy.

"I'm not going to let you murder an innocent man," Bobby quietly says.
"Then why'd you bring me here?" Sam snips, his cold, expressionless mask showing the tiniest of cracks for the first time to allow fresh anger to play across his face.
"Why? 'Cause it was the only way you'd see me." Bobby is angry, too. "'Cause I'm trying to knock some sense into you! Because I thought you'd back down from killing a man!"
"Well, you thought wrong," Sam grates. Like I said: chilling. "Leave the stuff, I'll do it myself."
"I told you," Bobby begins. "I'm not going to let you kill an –"
"It's none of your damn business what I do!" Sam bellows, that cold, hard temper of his snapping very suddenly and completely.

Bobby stares at him for a moment, startled. Dean shouted at Bobby in his grief, as well, but he apologised for it immediately. Dean's temper burns hot and quick and is over immediately, and he is never afraid to own his mistakes. Sam's temper is cold and hard and can simmer indefinitely, and he rarely backs down.

Bobby holds Sam's stony gaze a moment longer. "You want your brother back so bad?" he grits out at last, reaching into a bag to pull out a wicked-looking knife. "Fine."
Sam's grim expression cracks a little more, as he frowns in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Better me than a civilian," Bobby says, holding the knife out to him.

Viewers start to grow suspicious once again, because as noble and loving a gesture as this is, it doesn't sound like Bobby.

Sam twitches. "You're crazy, Bobby, I'm not killing you," he says at length, proving that there is still something of the old Sam left after all, however deep he is buried beneath all that desperate anger and grief and obsession.

"Oh, now I'm the crazy one," Bobby scoffs. "Look, Sam. I'm old; I'm coming near the end of my trail." He's not that old, surely. "But you can keep fighting, saving folk." And that mantra, right there, is lifted straight out of Dean's motto for the whole of season one, a lifeline thrown for Sam to grab onto at the last moment, if only he could recognise it. He's been fighting all these months, but I doubt any of it was about saving folk: it was all about the killing, lashing out at anything evil he could find in an attempt to vent a little rage, just like Dean in Bloodlust but without any steadying influence to hold him back. "But you need your brother," Bobby continues, holding Sam's eyes with his steady, sincere gaze. "So let me give him back to you."

Sam is torn between what he has wanted and worked toward all these months and what his conscience and heart are telling him, no longer able to see any clear line between right and wrong. There's no balance in his life any more, none whatsoever.

"You and Dean, you boys are the closest thing I have to family," Bobby presses, and yes, that was firmly established just last episode. Sam is starting to well up a little at this reminder, as Bobby keeps holding the knife out to him and continues, "I want to do this."

My copy of the episode has a momentary fritz here, but I think Sam takes the knife and says okay. His eyes are glinting with unshed tears, and I get the impression that he hasn't allowed himself to cry for Dean since it happened, since that first shock of grief in the parking lot. He just shut down and closed himself off and refused to allow himself to feel anything but that cold, hard rage that fuelled his hunt all these months. He chose vengeance over grief, because vengeance gave him a purpose and a twisted kind of hope to hold on to, while grief meant letting go and he wasn't prepared to do that.

But viewers are still smelling that fish, because as sappy and touching and emotional as all this is, it still doesn't sound like Bobby.

Bobby turns and kneels with his back to Sam, and he looks scared as he urges Sam to make it quick. Sam teeters and struggles with himself, and reaches a decision. Even as he reassures his old friend, he pulls a stake out of his jacket, disregarding the knife entirely.

"But you want to know why?" he asks, confidence and purpose returning to his voice as he grabs Bobby around the neck and plunges the stake right through his back and out the other side! Ick! "Because you're not Bobby," he grits into Bobby's ear, having reached his own conclusions based on the evidence available. But is he assessing the situation correctly, or is he allowing his obsession with the Trickster to blind him, making him see only what he wants to see? Can he trust his judgement, or is he too far gone to distinguish friend from foe, even?

Bobby slumps to the ground, dead…but his body fails to disappear, or turn into the Trickster's corpse, or anything Sam might have been expecting, and Sam's grim satisfaction slowly fades into doubt and rising horror at what he's done as he calls Bobby's name over and over, but, of course, receives no reply. This is the final twisting of the knife of this nightmare scenario Sam has been trapped in all this time, carefully crafted to prove to him beyond all doubt just how far he has fallen and just how deeply flawed his judgement has become.

Sam is left hanging just long enough for the impact and enormity of what he's done to really sink in before fakeBobby's body finally shimmers and vanishes to reveal that this was all, once again, merely an elaborate trick. Viewers heave a sigh of relief. Sam just has time to start breathing again before the stake shoots up into the air and zips past his ear into the Trickster's hand.

Sam just looks…wiped out, completely and utterly wiped out. Hurt. His burning anger and furious drive for either revenge or resolution has fuelled him all these months, but he spent it all on that confrontation with fakeBobby and has finally exhausted his reserves. He just doesn't have it in him to be surprised or angry or scared or anything. He just can't take any more.

"You're right," the Trickster smirks. "I was just screwing with you. Pretty good, though, Sam. Smart. Let me tell you, whoever says Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands."

That's an interesting observation. It's all relative, of course, and I think it's safe to say that both brothers would be considered impressively dysfunctional by anyone's standards. A psychologist would have a field day with them both, but they were damaged in different ways and at different times, and that damage manifests differently. Dean's is a lot older, accumulated gradually over a long period of time stretching all the way back to his mother's violent death. His innate insecurity and crippling dependence on his family is incredibly deep-seated, although the extent of the damage only became really apparent when his life started to spiral out of control in season one, pushing him over the edge. Having been sheltered by his brother from the worst deficiencies of their childhood, the bulk of Sam's damage is more recent in origin, the result of the deteriorating situation he has found himself in, but no less severe for being so fresh. Put the two together, and the result is the incredibly extreme and unhealthy co-dependence we have watched them develop over the course of the last two and a half seasons.

The Trickster continues to chuckle about how funny Sam's grief and mania are, because causing pain of any kind, great or small, is how he gets his kicks.

"Bring him back," Sam brokenly murmurs, even now unable to see any other way out of his nightmare; he's been holding onto this one thought and this one thought alone for too long to let go of it now.
"Who, Dean?" the Trickster feigns confusion. "Dean's dead. And he isn't coming back. His soul's downstairs doing the hellfire rumba as we speak."

And you just know that the thought of that has been tormenting Sam all these months. They were supposed to have more time: more time to figure out a solution, more time to spend together before the end, and the Trickster robbed them of that time.

"Just take us back to that Tuesday." Sam's voice is barely even a whisper. He's just broken. Completely broken. Choked up with tears that threaten to start falling at any moment. "Or Wednesday. When it all started. Please. We won't come after you, I swear."
The Trickster is unconvinced. "You swear," he disbelieves.
"Yes!" Sam fervently insists, trying desperately to cling to the hope that this creature can do something, change what happened, re-write the past – anything.
"I don't know," the Trickster prevaricates. "Even if I could…"
"You can," Sam insists, eyes starting to light up with hopeful fervour.
"True," the Trickster admits. "But that don't mean I should. Sam, there's a lesson here," he announces. "That I've been trying to drill into that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours."
"Lesson?" Sam whimpers, mystified, because all he can see in this experience is pain heaped on pain heaped on pain. The point of all this has been staring him in the face since day one, and fakeBobby was the final example, but he remains completely blind to it.
"This obsession to save Dean?" the Trickster pointedly replies. "The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood and pain. Dean's your weakness. And the bad guys know it, too. It's gonna be the death of you, Sam."

Does the Trickster really care what happens to Sam? Is he telling him this because he genuinely wants to teach him a lesson, to see him to learn and grow as a person and survive the demon war, or because he cares in any way about his and Dean's plight? I can't see it somehow, not really, not in the way that we would understand it. But he is very much involved now, having invested so much time and effort into creating this little mini reality just for Sam and having watched him for so long. I tend to think that the Trickster is interested in people in much the same way that a collector of rare and unusual stamps is interested in rare and unusual stamps, with Sam – the Yellow-Eyed Demon's special chosen child – the rarest and most unusual of them all. It's a detached kind of interest and concern, aloof and from afar. He likes to play with people and find out what they are made of, see how far he can push them before they break, and Sam is an incredibly stubborn specimen. He has been pushed a horribly long way, and has broken, but is still standing, still has his eyes fixed on the prize, and remains seemingly incapable of taking the lesson offered on board.

And the Trickster has a very good point. Sam has been desperate all season to find a way to save Dean from the consequences of his deal with the crossroads demon, and everyone knows it, especially the demons. We've already seen Ruby taking full advantage of his desperation to manoeuvre herself into his life and trust, and all it took was a few vague promises with no evidence whatsoever that she could follow through on them. She was absolutely right when she told Dean in Malleus Maleficarum that Sam is not ready yet to stand alone, and this episode proves that point further. All any enemy has to do is target Dean and they can very effectively either distract Sam from the mission or otherwise shape his actions, forcing him down a path that serves their interests rather than his or that of the greater good. Sam is incredibly vulnerable this season, increasingly so.

"Sometimes, you've just got to let people go," the Trickster summarises.
"He's my brother," Sam mourns.
"Yep," the Trickster agrees. "And, like it or not, this is what life's going to be like without him."

But it doesn't have to be, and that is the point. Sam did this to himself. It's all about free will, about making a choice, and when it came right down to it, Sam chose the path of destruction. As terrible and painful as it would have been, he could have chosen to mourn his brother and move on, to honour Dean by facing the future in a positive manner, by grieving with friends and by making the most of his own life. He didn't; he's just not ready to face the future alone, as the last man standing, and by this point you have to wonder if he ever will be. So the question is: if and when Dean's deal came due with no get-out clause in sight, would Sam make this same choice, react in this same way? Or is the extremity of his reaction here in large part the result of being trapped inside that time loop for so long? Over 100 days is a hell of a long time: getting on for four months, experiencing his brother's death every single day and in every possible way, with the result that his mental stability was already on the downward slide long before Dean's death became permanent. There is no way that experience did not affect his post-Dean judgement and reactions, because he was already locked into a dangerously obsessive pattern by then.

"Please. Just…please," Sam implores, all red-nosed and blotchy from the effort not to cry. Everything he's put himself through for all these months has been for this, seeking out and preparing for this confrontation, but now that it's here he's just got nothing left, the fight well and truly beaten out of him.
The Trickster rolls his eyes with a frustrated sigh. "I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall," he grumbles. Sam isn't even listening, just staring at him in mute appeal. "Look," the Trickster decides, bored of the game now. "This all stopped being fun months ago. You're Travis Bickle in a skirt, pal. I'm over it."
"Meaning what?" Sam murmurs, too numb to comprehend anything his tormenter is saying.
"Meaning that's for me to know and you to find out." The Trickster clicks his fingers.

And the bubble bursts, so to speak. The point has been hammered home, although whether Sam is capable of recognising it, when he has time and space to reflect, is another matter entirely, and it is simply no longer worth the effort of maintaining all this.

Motel. Morning. Back in time the radio loudly sings. Sam snaps awake and is puzzled, unable to grasp his bearings after so many months of silent solitude. He sits up to find himself back in the motel in Broward, and looks up to see Dean, alive and oblivious at the sink in the little bathroom area, which doesn't actually seem to have a door.

"What, you going to sleep all day?" Dean snarks by way of greeting. "I know, no Asia. This station sucks."

Dean gets on with cleaning his teeth, while Sam struggles to process, glancing at the clock to find it reading Wednesday. Back in time. Sam still can't take this in; he's just completely and utterly emotionally sandblasted by the whole experience.

"It's Wednesday," Sam breathes in disbelief.
"Yeah," Dean agrees. "Which usually follows Tuesday. Turn that thing off."

Sam ignores this instruction, finally and wonderfully accepting this as reality. He throws off the covers, crosses the space between them in a couple of long strides, and throws his arms around his brother's neck for a long, fierce hug during which he finally allows himself to breathe and relax again, because it is real. Dean is flesh and blood and alive again, and the never-ending nightmare is over at last. It's been months, from Sam's point of view. Months of the time loop, and months alone after Dean's death, and he remembers it all.

Dean, we remember from that final Tuesday forever ago, knows only the barest bones of the time loop thing, and only heard about his own recurring deaths in passing while Sam argued with the Trickster, so he's a little nonplussed but goes with it. Whatever Sam needs.

"Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" he wonders at length.
"Enough," Sam bites out, still squeezing hard, and man, Sam is huge. Dean isn't small, but Sam totally engulfs him.

Sam finally lets go and takes a step back, but he's still holding onto Dean and still totally invading his brother's personal space as he asks how much Dean remembers. Dean repeats what he said the last time they lived this Wednesday: that Sam was pretty whacked out yesterday, and then they ran into the Trickster.

Sam digests this, and nods. "Let's go."
"No breakfast?" Dean immediately pouts.
Sam laughs, because this is what he's been missing all those long, lonely months. "No breakfast," he quietly insists.

Dean accepts this without question or complaint and says that he'll go pack the car, but Sam instantly remembers how this played out last time and insists that he's not going anywhere alone. Dean protests that it's just the parking lot, but Sam earnestly asks his brother to just trust him, and Dean clearly does because he doesn't go out there on his own, instead hanging around in the room until Sam is dressed and packed.

As a sombre Sam finishes packing, Dean waits by the door. "Hey, you don't look so good," he observes, big brother mode engaged in the face of Sam's broodiness. "Did something else happen?"

Sam pauses, quietly gazing into space, collecting himself, still trying to recover from those months of furious grief and obsession when he lost himself so completely, and maybe reflecting on the fact that it isn't really over, is it? If he can't find a way out of the crossroads deal, he still has all that terrible grief and solitude to look forward to all over again. "Just had a really weird dream," he says at last, not meeting his brother's eyes.

"Clowns or midgets?" Dean promptly asks, but although the question and tone are jocular, his face is serious, watching Sam closely. Sam finally looks over at him, and Dean instantly plasters on a smile and teasing wink, working hard here to lighten Sam's mood. Sam manufactures a smile in response, and shoulders his bag ready to leave.

Dean heads on out, but Sam pauses in the doorway to look back at this room he woke up in so many times, and at the bed he is leaving behind all messy and dishevelled, just like the life he shares with his brother that he is so desperate to hold onto because the alternative he now knows to be too unbearable to contemplate. Struggling to hold back tears once more, because this is not going to be easy to get over, he quietly flicks the light off and closes the door behind him.

Viewers are left to wonder just how long it will take for Sam to re-adjust to his old life and to feel comfortable letting Dean out of his sight again. It'll be interesting to see the next episode, since in theory an experience like this should have a profound and lasting impact on Sam's development, but the next episode was originally intended to air before this one, which is bound to have an impact on continuity. And the big question is: will Sam be able to take the Trickster's point on board or not? Will he be able to take a step back from his situation and try to look at the bigger picture, consider other possibilities and priorities, or will this experience have scarred him so badly that he becomes more desperate to save Dean than ever?


February 2008

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