3.11 Mystery Spot

Title	Mystery Spot
Episode #	Season 3, Episode 11
First aired	February 14, 2008
Directed by	Kim Manners
Written by	Teleplay: Jeremy Carver Story: Jeremy Carver Emily McLaughlin
On IMDB	Mystery Spot
Outline	Sam keeps reliving the same Tuesday in which Dean keeps dying.
Monster	Trickster
Timeline
Location(s)	Broward County, Florida
« Previous Episode | Next Episode »

Synopsis

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 whom 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're 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’s 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 "Heat of the Moment" plays again.

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. "Heat of the Moment." Dean takes a shower, and Sam hears Dean yell and a thud. "Heat of the Moment." They’re eating tacos, and Dean asks if they taste funny. "Heat of the Moment." Dean is electrocuted by plugging in his razor. "Heat of the Moment." Sam and Dean go back to the Mystery Spot, duct tape the owner to a chair, and Sam tears the place apart with an axe. Dean tries to get the axe away from Sam, they fight, blood spurts, and Sam cries for Dean. "Heat of the Moment."

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’s a terrible shot (implying Dean died this way). He tells Dean angrily this is the hundredth Tuesday. He proves his point by repeating what Dean says at the exact same time and talking about the other patrons in the diner, not to mention catching the hot sauce again. Again they see the dog, 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’s the man’s daughter. Sam chases after her to ask questions, while Dean goes to pet the dog. Growling and mauling ensue.

"Heat of the Moment." 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 desserts" that a man out to ruin Mystery Spots disappears in one. Sam notices a man who has been having pancakes every day ordering 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’s repeating Tuesdays and watching Dean die everyday. Dean stands off to the side confused by what is happening. Sam says that they’ve killed one of his kind before, and the man turns into the Trickster and tells Sam they didn’t. The Trickster admits it’s been fun killing Dean every day, but that this time, the joke's on Sam, so he’ll 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" by Huey Lewis and the News, and is elated to see Dean alive and that it's Wednesday. They pack up to leave, and Dean goes out to the car first where he’s held up at gunpoint by Cal, a mugger who was 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 shown hunting alone across the country, 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 (à la John Winchester). 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 meets 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, he 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. Sam still begs, so the Trickster snaps his fingers.

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

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Bobby Singer
• Trickster

Definitions

• Acting in Unison
• Bobby's Hats
• Costumes & Disguises
• Dead...or are they?
• Dean's Amulet
• Deer's Head
• Deities
• Fights
• Hugs
• Impala
• Mystery Spot
• Pig in a Poke
• Resurrection
• Sammy
• The Shining
• Table of Death
• Time Loop
• The X-Files

Music

• "Heat of the Moment" by Asia

(the oft-recurring song that wakes Sam up each Tuesday)

• "Back in Time" by Huey Lewis and the News

(Wednesday's song, AKA: the most beautiful song Sam's ever heard)

Quotes

Sam: Dude. Asia?

Dean: Come on. You love this song and you know it.

Sam: Yeah, and if I ever hear it again I'm gonna kill myself.

Sam: Man, I had a weird dream.
Dean: Yeah? Clowns or midgets?

Dean: Sam, I'm sorry, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Sam: Okay, look. Yesterday was Tuesday, right? But today is Tuesday too.

Dean: Yeah. No. Good. You're totally balanced.

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

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 has full control over his bladder? Come on!

Dean: Do these tacos taste funny to you?

Dean: You don't know everything.

Sam: Yeah. I do.
Dean & Sam: Yeah, right. Nice guess.
Sam: It wasn't a guess.
Dean & Sam: 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 makeup. Sam Winchester cries his way through sex. Sam Winchester keeps a ruler by the bed and every morning when he wakes up he—

Dean & Sam: Okay, enough!

Trickster: How long will it take you to realize? You can't save your brother. No matter what.

Trickster: True. But that don't mean I should. Sam, there's a lesson here that I've been trying to drill into that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours.

Sam: Lesson? What lesson?

Trickster: This obsession to save Dean? 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. Sometimes you just gotta let people go.

Dean: Hey, you don't look so good. Something else happen?

Sam: I just had a really weird dream.

Dean: Clowns or midgets?

Trivia & References

Dean: Hey, Tuesday. Pig in a poke.

Sam: Do you even know what that is?

Pig in a Poke is a sausage dish usually served for breakfast. It also refers to an expression in which buying a pig in a poke is to buy something sight unseen. The expression refers to an old practice used by devious salesmen, who offered to sell a customer a pig, but instead gave them a cat in a box or bag.

Sam: Okay, look, I'm just saying, there are spots in the world where holes open up and swallow people. The Bermuda Triangle, uh, the Oregon Vortex—

The Bermuda Triangle is a region in the Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The Oregon Vortex is a roadside attraction located in Gold Hill, Oregon.

Dean: Sounds a little X-Files to me.

The X-Files was a '90s series about aliens and the paranormal. Kim Manners, who directed this episode, was a director and producer on The X-Files. He also directed The X-Files's time loop episode "Monday."

Dean: Look, I'm just saying that it's crazy, you know, I mean, even for us crazy. Dingo-ate-my-baby crazy. Hey, maybe it was another of your psychic premonitions.

In 1980 at Uluru (Ayers Rock), Lindy and Michael Chamberlain claimed a dingo took their baby, Azaria, from her tent. The claim was widely ridiculed and Lindy was later convicted of murder, and Michael as an accessory. Although a body was never found, new evidence indicating a dingo was probably responsible led to both sets of charges being overturned in 1988. The line has become a part of pop culture. It was a line in an episode of Seinfeld as well as a band in the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Phil's Diner

Dean: Okay. Okay. I'm listening. So, so – you think that you're in some kind of a what again?

Sam: Time loop.
Dean: Like Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day was a 1993 movie starring Bill Murray, where his character relives the same day over and over. Other references to Groundhog Day include Sam waking to the same song every morning, though in Groundhog Day the song is "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher. The diner the boys eat in is called Phil's Diner after Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog in the movie, and it features a groundhog on the menu. The waitress has the same name as the waitress in Groundhog Day: Doris.

Dean: Okay, Kojak, let's get some air.

Kojak was a tough cop played by Telly Savalas in the eponymous '70s series.

Sam hacking away at the wall with the axe is somewhat similar to Jack Nicholson's famous scene in The Shining.

The song "Back in Time" was featured prominently in the movie Back to the Future, which dealt with time travel.

Trickster: I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall. Okay, look. This all stopped being fun months ago. You're Travis Bickle in a skirt, pal. I'm over it.

Travis Bickle was the obsessed taxi driver played by Robert DeNiro in the Martin Scorsese movie Taxi Driver.

Trickster: You're right. I was just screwing with you. Pretty good, though, Sam. Smart. Let me tell you, whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands. Holy Full Metal Jacket.

Full Metal Jacket was a 1987 Kubrick movie following the transformation into psychotic killers of the protagonist and his marine comrades through dehumanizing training at boot camp and the brutality of the Vietnam War. At the film’s climax the protagonist bayonets a sniper who is a young Vietnamese girl.

Minutiae

Jared Padalecki cited this episode as a possible series finale for the show because it was shot after 3.12 Jus in Bello and was the last to shoot before the writer's strike.

Sam wakes up at 7:30 am each Tuesday.

Ways we know Dean dies on Tuesday:

Shot at the Mystery Spot.

Run over.

Crushed by a falling desk.

Chokes on a sausage.

Slips in the shower.

Poisoned by a taco.

Electrocuted by his razor.

Accidentally killed with an axe by Sam.

Shot with an arrow by Doris the waitress.

Mauled by a golden retriever.

And on Wednesday:

Shot in hotel parking lot by Cal the mugger.

The deer's head appears in this episode - while Sam and Dean are in the Mystery Spot.

Sam and Dean's hotel room has flamingo wallpaper and a flamingo room divider.

After Dean's "real" death, a pirate theme is seen with Sam at the Bounty motel, which is next to the "Buck & Ear" (Buccaneer) bar.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 3.11 Mystery Spot (transcript)

Promotion

• Promo #1
• Promo #2
• Set Photos from Curly Merly
• Jared talks about filming Mystery Spot.