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Mystery Spot is the 11th episode of Season 3. It premiered on February 14th, 2008.

Summary[]

Dean Purgatory Blade.png There was something about being there... It felt pure.

This episode summary is an official CW press release. It may contain errors.
DO NOT CHANGE!

Sam and Dean investigate the disappearance of a man who went missing at a tourist location. While searching the site, Dean is shot and killed by the owner. Sam is devastated but stunned when he wakes up the next morning to find Dean alive and well. As the day unfolds, Sam realizes he is re-living the previous day and tries to prevent Dean's death, but to no avail. Dean dies again and Sam must learn to live life without his brother by his side.

Plot[]

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Sam wakes up in a motel room to Heat of the Moment by Asia where he finds Dean already up and getting dressed. Dean goes through a long and irritating morning bathroom routine, and they go to the local diner for breakfast. Sam tells him about a man that disappeared at the Broward County Mystery Spot. Dean orders the Tuesday special, "Pig 'n a Poke with a side of bacon," and as the waitress delivers their coffee, she accidentally drops a bottle of hot sauce on the floor.

As Sam and Dean walk down the city block discussing the Mystery Spot, they run across a barking golden retriever, a blonde woman who Dean bumps into, and movers struggling to get a desk inside a building. When night falls they break in to the tacky tourist trap after hours, but as they are wandering through the halls, the owner approaches them with a shotgun. The gun goes off by mistake, and the bullet hits Dean square in the chest. Sam frantically rushes over to Dean and tearfully holds him as he dies.

Sam wakes up to Asia again and sees Dean just like he did the day before—teasing him by turning up the song, lip-syncing, and bobbing his head to the beat. The same scene in the diner replays, befuddling Sam who catches the hot sauce from falling this time. They run across the dog, the woman, and the movers again while Sam convinces Dean to check out the Mystery Spot now instead of later. Dean agrees, steps out onto the street, and flies through the air in spectacular fashion when a speeding car hits him. Sam rushes to his side and is again traumatized by holding his dead brother in his arms.

Asia plays again. A rattled Sam watches Dean go through the same morning gargle. He tells Dean in the diner that he's stuck in a time loop like Groundhog Day and that Dean is going to die. Back on the sidewalk—dog, woman, movers—and just before Dean steps out in the street, Sam pulls him back, telling him the car hit him yesterday. They go to the Mystery Spot, posing as reporters, only to get an act from the owner while Sam gets very irritated. Dean concludes that as long as he doesn't die, that will break the time loop. As Sam agrees, Dean steps forward, and the desk from earlier ends up falling on him, crushing him Wile E. Coyote style. Sam looks on in horror and Asia plays again.

DeanvdeskMystery

At the diner, Sam is very anxious, again telling Dean about his time loop problem. Dean promises he won't die and tries to break the cycle by ordering sausage instead of bacon, but proceeds to choke. Dean takes a shower and Sam hears Dean yell and a thud. They are eating tacos and Dean asks if they taste funny. Dean is electrocuted by plugging in his razor. Sam and Dean go back at the Mystery Spot, duct tape the owner to a chair, and Sam tears apart the place with an axe. Dean tries to get the axe away from Sam, they fight, blood spurts, and Sam cries for Dean.

By this time, Sam is extremely agitated. In the diner, Dean orders the Tuesday special again, and Sam tells Doris the waitress to clock some hours in at the archery range because she is a terrible shot (thus implying Dean died this way). He tells Dean angrily this is the hundredth Tuesday. He proves his point by repeating what Dean says at exactly the same time and talks about the other patrons in the diner, not to mention catching the hot sauce again. Again they see the dog, the old man looking for his keys (which Sam took earlier), and a woman bumping into them. Dean chases after the woman and finds that she has flyers of the man they're looking for. He asks Sam why in one hundred Tuesdays he didn't find out that she is the man's daughter. Sam chases after her to ask questions, while Dean goes to pet the dog. Growling and mauling ensue.

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Asia. At the diner, Sam, while on his computer, discovers that their missing man debunks tourist traps. He's apparently a pompous ass, and Dean points out that it's "just deserts" that a man out to get Mystery Spots disappears in one. Sam notices the man who has been having pancakes everyday ordered a different kind of syrup, which is the first change to happen. Asia plays, and Sam wakes up with a look of both revelation and fury.

In the diner, the pancake man leaves, and Sam goes after him. He corners him in the alley and holds a wooden stake to his neck, telling him he finally figured out why he is repeating Tuesdays and watching Dean die everyday. Dean stands off to the side confused by what is happening. Sam says that they have killed one of his kind before, and the man turns into the Trickster and tells Sam they didn't before calling them "chuckleheads". The Trickster admits it's been fun killing Dean everyday, but that this time, the joke's on Sam, so he will finally get the point that he can't save his brother. Sam threatens to kill him, but the Trickster says the joke is off and takes them to Wednesday with a snap of his fingers.

Sam wakes to a different song, Back in Time, and is elated to see Dean alive and that it is Wednesday. They pack up to leave, and Dean goes out to the car first where he's held up at gunpoint by one of the diner patrons. Sam hears the gunshot and rushes outside to see Dean on the ground, shot in the chest and dead. He holds Dean in his arms and closes his eyes, dismayed when nothing changes, before starting to sob.

A very dark montage starts with Sam driving the Impala, a distant look on his face. He's been hunting alone across the country for six months, pulling off some big kills, while Bobby leaves him a set of messages asking him to call, mentioning that he hasn't heard from Sam in three months and is worried. Sam arrives at a motel, and the weapons in the Impala are now all organized in foam casing. Without expression, Sam fixes his own gunshot wound inside the room, cutting off his shirt, picking out the bullet and stitching himself up. He eats alone, cleans a gun while examining with a cold stare the set of pictures on the wall tracking the Trickster, and makes the bed in meticulous fashion after waking. He brushes his teeth and stares in the mirror at a reflection that is defeated and emotionally dead inside. Finally, a message from Bobby plays in the background, claiming that he has found the Trickster.

Sam goes to Bobby at the Mystery Spot, and Bobby tells him that in order to pull off the summoning ritual they will need a gallon of fresh blood, meaning they will have to bleed someone dry. Sam coldly tells Bobby he'll go find some, and Bobby is appalled that Sam is willing to kill an innocent person. Bobby gets out a knife and tells Sam to kill him instead. Sam agrees, but from behind Sam pulls out a wooden stake and stabs him through the heart, saying he's not Bobby. The Trickster emerges and tells Sam he is right. Sam tearfully begs the Trickster to bring back Dean, but the Trickster says that Sam should let him go because Dean will always be his weakness, his enemies know it, and nothing good will come of their sacrifices for each other—only pain. He says, "This is what it will be like without Dean." Sam still begs, and the Trickster comments that it's like talking to a brick wall. He then snaps his fingers and ends the fake reality that Sam was living in.

Sam wakes up in the motel room with Back in Time playing on the radio. Dean is there, and a shaken Sam gets up and gives Dean a huge hug. They leave together, and Sam is somber, deeply affected by his experience. He sees the unmade bed and realizes that life without Dean will still happen. 

Characters[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Guest Stars[]

Co-Stars[]

Featured Supernatural Beings[]

Trivia[]

  • The filming for this episode takes place in Steveston, British Columbia. As well as being used to resemble Broward County, Florida, this location doubles as another area of magical interest; Storybrooke, the town in which all fairytale characters live in Once Upon a Time.
  • Dean mentions that the idea of the time warp is "'dingo ate my baby' crazy", a reference to the death of a nine-week-old Australian baby girl named Azaria Chamberlain, who had been taken from her family's tent and killed by dingoes during a camping trip at Uluru in 1980.
  • Dingoes Ate My Baby may also be a reference to the band of the same name in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • This episode is similar to the song Kagerou Days as Dean repeatedly dies and gets resurrected on the same day multiple times while Sam has to watch.
  • This episode bears similarities to an episode of Xena the Warrior Princess; in the said episode Xena is stuck in a time loop that resets the day whenever Hermia dies. Some other similarities are that both Dean and Joxer start the day with the same quote every day until the loop is broken, both Sam and Xena eventually adapt to the accidents that happen through the day and stop them before they happen, word games (Sam speaking in perfect unison with Dean and Xena rapidly answering the questions before they were even asked), eventual apathy to death of loop-aware characters (Sam being more annoyed than saddened with Dean's latter deaths, and Xena preforming calculations while riot rages around her, as well as Xena killing Joxer out of rage for being woken up) as well as a slightly different "real tomorrow" ("Back in Time" plays instead "Heat of the Moment", and Joxer brings turnips instead of goose eggs for breakfast).
  • Somewhat similarly to in the case of the alternate future in The End, it's unknown whether the time loop and the post-loop alternate timeline where Dean stays dead are real or are an elaborate illusion. Worth noting is that the alternate timeline lasts for at least six months and Dean remains dead, whereas in the main timeline, Dean was resurrected after only four months.
  • Jared Padalecki regards this episode as one of his least favorites, since he had to cry all week and it was emotionally taxing.
  • Jensen Ackles says death by taco is his favorite death scene.
  • Director Kim Manners also directed the similarly themed episode of The X-Files titled Monday. In that episode, the character Pam finds herself endlessly reliving the morning her boyfriend's actions result in the deaths of Agents Mulder and Scully.

Deaths[]

Featured Music[]

  • "Heat of the Moment" by Asia
  • "Back in Time" by Huey Lewis and the News

Quotes[]

  • Sam and Dean: "Yeah right. Nice guess."
  • Sam: "It wasn't a guess."
  • Sam and Dean: "Right, you're a mind reader. Cut it out Sam. Sam! You think you're being funny but you're being really, really childish. Sam Winchester wears make-up. Sam Winchester cries his way through sex. Sam Winchester keeps a ruler by the bed and every morning when he wakes up ... okay, enough!"

  • Dean: "Sammy, I get all tingly when you take control like that."

  • Sam: "Yesterday was Tuesday, right? But today is Tuesday, too."

  • Dean: [after Sam tells Dean he saw him get hit by a car] And?
  • Sam: And what?
  • Dean: Did it look cool, like in the movies?
  • Sam: You peed yourself.
  • Dean: Of course, I peed myself. Man gets hit by a car, you think he had full control of his bladder? Come on!

  • Dean: Rise and shine, Sammy!

Gallery[]

 International Titles[]

  • German: Und täglich grüßt... (And daily greets...)
  • Brazil: Local Misterioso (Mysterious Place)
  • Hungarian: Időcsapda (Time Trap)
  • French: Un Jour Sans Fin (An Endless Day)
  • Polish: Zakątek tajemnic (Mystery Place)

External Links[]

Navigational[]

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