Sam and Dean get stuck in TVLand, but not Pleasantville. They’re being zapped around by their old nemesis, the Trickster, who wants them to get on with the apocalypse (as do many viewers), but his version of getting on with it involves accepting certain angelic offers and then killing each other. Unsurprisingly, he turns out to be an angel. Surprisingly, he was always one. Dean and Sam are not amused, but they’re the only ones who aren’t.

The show opens with a teaser straight out of sitcom hell (Supernatural: the sitcom), and replaced its usual title card with an equally awful (but funny) opening theme song and montage. In theory this was hilarious, but I’m too scarred by god-awful sitcoms to laugh. Also, the bimbo annoyed me. Something about her bra. It was pretty ugly. Also, totally a push up bra. Kind of reminded me of what my flat chested friends wore at 14. Bimbo wearing a little girl push up bra. But I DIGRESS!

Anyway, in the episode proper, the brothers Winchester end up wandering into a trap set for them by the Trickster (and shouldn’t they be suspicious now of how they’ve only ever met the one?) He used the incredible hulk as bait, for which I must give him points, and then sets about plunking the fraternal duo into a series of TV parodies. Dean turns out to be a secret fan of Grey’s Anatomy (also known as Dr. Sexy, MD), the first scenario. It was a good send up all around, but the music was what sold it to me. They quickly find the Trickster, who quite rightly congratulates them on being quicker on the uptake than they have been previously. Sam tries to convince the demi-god into helping them stop the apocalypse, but he’s a bit pissy about them starting it in the first place, and refuses to hear any such thing unless the boys can survive his game for 24 hours.

So they boys are left with no choice but to stick it out. Dr Sexy, MD, doesn’t turn out too happily for them: the disgruntled husband of a patient shoots Dean in the back, forcing Sam to operate. Sam’s at quite a loss in the operating room, finally calling out for the tools he knows best: some dental floss, a sewing needle, a pen knife, and a fifth of whiskey. I found this even more amusing than the parody itself, but I had trouble believing that Sam could feel so daunted at the prospect of using a scalpel. It’s pretty obvious which side is sharp. Anyway, as soon as Dean’s all stitched up, the guys are catapulted into a Japanese trivia show…where wrong answers are rewarded with a mechanical kick to the balls. You know, Japanese television gets this really weird rep…and it totally deserves it. I was an exchange student. I know.  Since the questions are all in Japanese, they’re kind of screwed, and Sam quickly suffers the consequences. Dean, in an act of desperation pushes the button and somehow manages to answer the question. In Japanese. He was channeling Bobby there for a second. I am infinitely grateful they did not understand the question (”Would your family still be alive if Sam hadn’t ever been born?”) because it just would have been more angst-fodder.

Castiel shows up briefly, and asks them what the hell they’re doing. Apparently they’ve been missing for days, which suggests the Trickster had no intention of having a little chat with them. Castiel is zapped away before he can break them out. Anyway, they quickly figure out that if they play their roles, they survive. At this point, I realized the Trickster either was or was working for the angels, which made the rest of the episode drag a bit for me, but on rewatch, I think that was just a fluke.

So Sam and Dean, having no better ideas, continue to play along through a pharmaceutical ad about herpes and the same godawful sitcom that the show opened up with. Their annoyed facial twitches and obvious teeth clenching were just right. Just as sitcom hell was about to send them around the bend, Castiel shows up again, looking a little worse for wear. He tells them tha the Trickster is far more powerful than it should be, but he just gets slammed into a wall and gagged for his trouble. The Trickster enters (it should be noted that all of this was  accompanied by the most obnoxious laugh track ever), wishes Castiel away to the cornfield, and tells the boys to accept their real-life roles as well, and get on with the apocalypse.

Dean manages to piss him off by asking who he’s bending over for, Heaven or Hell, but the Trickster merely boots them into CSI: Miami. They are not impressed. Oh, so not impressed. But they ham it up, boy do they ham it up, with their Horatio Cain impressions and godawful puns. But they’re being sneaky,  and all their playacting was a ploy to stab the Trickster with  a stake dipped in blood. The scene fizzles out with a TV-static flicker, and they find themselves back in the original empty warehouse. They quickly get the hell out of there, only to discover it’s all an illusion when Sam gets merged with the car to create a Knight Rider parody. Since this won’t do at all, they arrange to trick the Trickster into a circle of holy oil (from Free to Be You And Me), which was helpfully stashed into Sam’s trunk. (To describe any of these scenes in more detail would ruin their brilliance. They really must be seen to be appreciated.).

Their gamble pays off, and the manage to trap the erstwhile Archangel Gabriel. He emos at them a bit, and honestly, the emoing was the episode’s weakspot. I briefly had to take cover under the coffee table to avoid all the family-and-fate anvils. Seriously, guys, we get it. God = John, Sam and Dean = the Angels. IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE THEM. Yup, got that message too over the legion of other episodes that covered that topic. Don’t we all wish this was actually a TV show, so there’d be a happy ending? Gah. My least favorite metafictional reference in television. It’s cheap and it’s pointless. Save your metafictional references for actual commentary.

Still, I have to say I warmed up to the idea of the Archangel-trickster on second viewing. His motives seemed a bit muddled to me, but after some though I can handwave it. He didn’t like his family fighting, so he went into hiding. He didn’t want them to fight more, so he tried to prevent the apocalypse by pounding the message into Sam’s head in Mystery Spot. Now that it’s on, he’s pissed….at Sam especially, it seems, given the worst of this episode fell on Sam’s genitals…but mostly, he just wants to get it over with. Sure, why not. Dean gets him to zap Castiel back, then tells him to grow a spine and stand up to his family. Then he sets off the fire alarm so that the Trickster/Gabriel won’t be stuck in the circle for all eternity. Or until someone walks into the factory. Whichever would have come first. Either way, they save him from it.

What saves this scene for me is that the archangel/trickster’s personality didn’t really seem to change. They gave him some depth, but didn’t just retcon him away. And I really, really like the idea of this clever, pop-culture savvy angel with a sense of humor popping up in future episodes, especially if he’s fighting the good fight. That would be awesome.

So all in all, a good episode. I don’t hold it in quite the esteem I do “The Monster at the End of this Book” for mytharc heavy metafiction, and it’s not quite as perfect at the gimmick as “Monster Movie” was, but it did find a happy middle ground between the two.

One of the most admirable things about Supernatural, in my mind, is that when they do the gimmick episodes, they commit to the idea to such an extent that it rises above the cliche. Usually, shows are a little too proud of the conceit. I had a drama teacher back in college who warned constantly against telegraphing “I’m ACTING!” while performing, and is this is the trap that usually awaits gimmick episodes. Supernatural has done a number of episodes utilizing the gimmicks, but it never has given in to the nervous urge to let people know that “really, this is a joke”: It lets whatever gimmick (say, an old time horror flick or the TVland cliche) inform every aspect of its presentation: the teaser, the title card, the music, the lighting, the camera angles, the storytelling, so kudos for that.

I did have a few other problems and questions with this episode.

One is that I think that the whole destiny thing really does work better with a more subtle touch. The viewers aren’t stupid and can usually figure these things out for themselves. Additionally, subtly tends to lend and aura of depth  and mystery, always valuable. Just look at the X-Files, even though it never followed up on anything. Still, I would say that (for example), the hints of Scully’s immortality over several seasons were far better at effectively hinting at a bigger picture than Supernatural has been whenever DESTINY has come up.

Another was that there were a few plotholes in this episode. Plotholes happen. It’s a fact of life. Optimally, you don’t notice plotholes or are convinced not to care because the story is so awesome (see Casablanca. That thing has more holes than a sieve, but just try to bring yourself to care). For whatever reason, the first time I saw this episode I was on the right wavelength that everything seemed so blatantly obvious that it was a little tedious, so there was a lack of awesome to smooth them away.  So Castiel finding them and the magic oil trick just kind of bugged me. Especially the magic oil trick, jokes about pulling it out of Sam’s ass aside. If it’s not the real deal (i.e. came from the illusion) why did it work? If it is the real thing, how did they get to it? If it were an illusion, why didn’t it disappear with everything else? Why did the trickster return them to reality if he could still control stuff outside the circle?

Feel free to rain scorn down on me for not totally experiencing the awesome of this episode. In theory, I loved it. In practice, I was mildly entertained. So it goes.