Follow TV Tropes

Following

Recap / Supernatural S 03 E 03 Bad Day At Black Rock

Go To

Recap of Supernatural
Season 3, Episode 3:

Bad Day At Black Rock

Sam: I lost my shoe.

Written by Ben Edlund.

Directed by Robert Singer.

Airdate: October 18, 2007.

Gordon Walker is visited in prison by another hunter, whom he convinces that Sam is a monster, possibly an Antichrist. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam investigate a theft from one of their father's storage lockers at Black Rock, outside of Buffalo, New York. What was stolen? Oh, just a rabbit's foot.

Not to be confused with The A-Team episode "Black Day at Bad Rock."

Body count

For this episode = 1 human.

For the series so far = At least 212 humans, 15 ghosts, 6 changelings, 5 vampires, 2 shapeshifters, 2 werewolves, 5 demons, 1 djinn, 1 god, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 shtriga, 1 wendigo, and 1 zombie.

Tropes


  • Artifact of Death: According to Bobby, most people who own and subsequently lose a rabbit's foot die within a week.
  • Ax-Crazy: Kubrick. By the end even Gordon seems to realize he's a psycho, although they still share the goal of killing Sam.
  • Born Lucky
  • Born Unlucky: What happens once you lose the rabbit's foot. Both effects are weaponized by Dean, once he realizes exactly what the foot does and how it works.
  • Butt-Monkey/Cosmic Plaything: Sam trips and falls, gets tracked by hunters, gets set on fire, and loses his shoe.
  • Classy Cat-Burglar: Bela.
  • Collector of the Strange: Bela hunts down valuable occult objects for wealthy people who know of The Masquerade.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Bela dresses up as a waiter and manages to distract Sam in order to steal the rabbit's foot from his pocket without him realizing.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Sam winds up sitting very quietly in his motel room because of this. It doesn't help.
  • Evil Brit: More like Chaotic Neutral Brit, but Bela mostly applies.
  • Exposition Cut: The first scene of Sam and Dean cuts right in after Sam has told Dean that the blonde is a demon, thus neatly cutting out the part the audience already knows so that they can watch Sam and Dean argue over this piece of information instead. Interestingly, the audience learns something they didn't know before (if they didn't look up information on her yet) that the blonde told Sam off-screen: her name, Ruby. It also appears that Sam left out information the audience did know from his exposition—that the people connected to their mom were all killed by the yellow-eyed demon and that it is connected to Sam.
  • Expy: Bella has a cat, is a cat burglar and the writers admit she was heavily inspired by Catwoman.
  • Good Luck Charm/Bad Luck Charm: The rabbit's foot is both.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Gordon takes up this mantle, as for most of the episode he's confined to prison, as well as the businessman Bela plans to sell the Rabbit's Foot to, who is referred to but never seen.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: When the now-cursed guy slips on the bottle, he falls back and his head lands on a lobster pick, much like Final Destination.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Due to the effects of the rabbit's foot.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Kubrick takes everything as a sign from God.
  • Knight Templar: Kubrick. He sees hunting as a holy crusade against the forces of evil, specifically the Devil. He ends up believing that Sam is the Antichrist.
  • Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Played with. The foot does grant good luck, but take it away...
  • Necro Non Sequitur: Wayne trips on a bottle and lands on an upright meat fork which stabs him through the mouth. Sam comes pretty darn close at times.
  • Never Win the Lottery: Dean uses the rabbit's foot to win $46K from scratch tickets...only to have Bela steal them all.
  • MacGuffin: The rabbit's foot, which gives luck for as long as you can hold it, but kills you within a week of losing it.
  • Mood Whiplash: Multiple times. Scenes of torture and gruesome death follow or are followed by slapstick comedy.
  • Murphy's Bullet: Sam gets ahold of a rabbit's foot, a MacGuffin that gives you incredible luck as long as you hold it, but if you lose it, your luck gets progressively worse until it kills you. Sam has already lost it, and it is now in Dean's possession. Being Genre Savvy, the rival takes advantage of this trope, assured that any bullet she aims at Dean will instead hit Sam. It works.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Dean goes from walking into the building, to behind Bela in her own apartment in seconds.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: "I shot him in the shoulder. I know how to aim."
  • Only in It for the Money/Not in This for Your Revolution: Bela encounters the supernatural and the occult and, instead of using her knowledge to help people, steals valuable items and sells them for money, much to the scorn of Sam and Dean. The only way Bela and the Winchesters end up working together is when Bela's life is in danger.
  • Pinball Projectile: Dean drops his gun and it goes off. The bullet ricochets off several objects, shoots the gun out of Sam's hands and nearly misses hitting him.
  • Shout-Out:
    • To The Bellboy: "It was like watching Jerry Lewis try to stack chairs."
    • Bela's alias is "Lugosi".
    • Not only is Bela very clearly inspired by Catwoman, Dean has an "I'm Batman" moment.
  • Slapstick: Poor, unlucky Sam.
  • Slippery MacGuffin: As long as you have the rabbit's foot, you're invincible. Once you lose it, you're screwed. And you will lose it, sooner rather than later.
  • Superstition Episode: Sam accidentally invokes (by touching) a cursed rabbit's foot. He has incredibly good luck for a while until he inevitably loses it (as Bobby puts it, "Everyone loses it"), and then Sam's luck goes extremely bad. Not a straight example perhaps, because the rabbit's foot is a cursed object, so it isn't just superstition—though how it works is based on superstition—because touching the rabbit's foot really is good and then bad luck.
  • Troubling Un Childlike Behavior: Dean made his first sawed-off shotgun in sixth grade.
  • You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Dean tries this on Bela, and she responds by shooting Sam.

Top