‘Supernatural’ Recap: ‘The Gamblers’

Last week, we learned that the Winchesters must get their groove back.  The beginning of ‘The Gamblers’ shows a man, Leonard (), painfully down on his luck. He is playing a game of pool by the only person I imagine can grant them good luck or bad luck, depending on who wins. As they toss him outside, he throws his coin up in the air to press his luck one last time. As he does, though, and he is waiting for it to come back down, an eighteen-wheeler hits Leonard instead, instantaneously killing him.

Meanwhile, Cas discovers the note that has been left by Sam to let him know where he and Dean must venture off to this time. Eileen cannot help but think this place is too good to be true. It’s not even in the lore that they have read all these years. Dean decides that Chuck wants them weak. He wants them off their game, and he knows that he is coming from them eventually. He also knows if they don’t figure this out that they are DOA. All they have, of course, to go off of is Garth’s word.

Hearing a phone ring in the nearby room, Cas goes to answer it, figuring that someone needs some help. When the officer says that an agent told him to contact that number when a Jack Kline showed up in town, he immediately gains Cas’s attention. The officer sends him a video of Jack killing a local doctor. However, the doctor’s death is not captured on camera. The disturbing part is the part they found on camera, however, is that Jack sits down calmly in the chair and begins to eat the doctor’s heart. Is he a werewolf, or is this merely Billie’s plan to lure Cas into town?

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean are continuing to make their way to this magical place. A local waitress tells them that everyone who has headed up that way has never made it back. She points out Leonard, who has gone there recently because they were going to foreclose on his house. Despite the warning, they find the pool hall and immediately ask the bartender behind the counter about it. Pax () comes over to them and tells them to follow him.

Once they are in the back, Pax shows how they wager the games. As he puts down a coin, he tells them to go ahead and touch the coin. Pax explains that everyone that walks in there comes in with a certain amount of luck. Once the person feels the coin, the luck they came with deposits into the coin. By setting the coin on the table, the game starts. If the person wins, their luck improves. If he loses, he can continue to play until his luck runs out, and then he must leave.

They can divide the luck any way they choose if Dean wins. Even though Sam is against this idea, Dean admits that Sam is good at a lot of things, and he’s okay with it. But he knows that he can wipe the floor with him and Sam does too as he begrudgingly agrees to let Sam take on the bet. Dean makes a declaration of course that he is a little rusty, and a woman walks over to the table and puts her coin in the slot as Dean does as well. Sam asks Evie if she has ever noticed any bundles lying around or any weird smells.

He insists that places like this do not exist for no reason. Everyone in the bar is playing for a reason. A lot of people there had great luck for some time, but their problem is that they never walked away. Instead of walking away, they have remained inside. As Dean gains a bit more luck, Sam realizes that he might have to tell Dean when to walk away eventually. The place sucks a person in a typical gambler’s lifestyle until they inevitably lose. One more bet, one more drink, one more game.

Dean brings up the movie The Hustler. He swears he is only going to play one more game, but the guy is setting him up to win, so he will continue playing — a double or nothing shot. The same guy who beat Leonard plays Dean and ends up going outside after he loses to him. The man came there to beat cancer, and he managed to win an extra year. However, by continually playing, he is at the point where he is dying and giving into his last cigarette.

Soon Sam figures out why the players feel compelled to continue going. On the coins, there is a woman, and each coin has the label: Atrox Fortuna. Fortuna, as Sam, explains that she is the Roman goddess of luck. So while the currency’s charge should have more than enough juice, they never are because the house is taking a little from the top of each game. Soon they find out that her son is Pax.

Sam agrees to play Fortuna, who is the same woman that Dean played earlier. However, if he loses, he has both of their lives because they threatened to kill her son. When revealing why they are there, she explains that humans made them. God created the various gods and goddesses, so the humans had someone to blame beside him. As Sam gets her to explain this, he manages to beat her and then agrees to one more game.

Instead of taking more luck, he insists that she must return all the luck she has received from the patrons in the bar to them. Considering they challenged the goddess of luck in her place, they, of course, lost the bet. However, Evie and the rest of the bar patrons exit the bar, and she has a coin for them. She let them go because of the Winchesters and insisted that they needed to make Chuck play their game, not his own. With the coin, the boys are back in town.

During this time, Cas has bought the bait and goes to find Jack, finding a case that contains a Grigori angel sword inside. As he realizes this, audiences can see Jack following another Grigori. Jack is lurking around corners to kill the angel when the one comes around with his blade asking why Jack is hunting him. When the cop confronts Cas, he insists that he’s going to find his answers, but he doesn’t quite have them yet.

The Grigori that has captured Jack is attempting to figure out why he is killing his kind. Jack reveals he killed the doctor and is going after the Grigori is that they are feeding off of people. The doctor fed off his patients, the one before him, children. When asked who told him that, Jack revealed Billie, or as she is now known Death. Before killing him, he turns around to take on Cas, who ends up killing him first. Dropping the blade, Cas walks over to Jack, not able to believe his eyes.

Upon arrival at the bunker, Cas shows them that somehow Jack is still alive. However, most of us remember the conditions for Jack coming back the first time. Billie kept Jack safe in the empty so he could eat the angel hearts. Chuck is afraid of Jack. If Jack follows Billie’s plan, Jack will grow stronger.  The Winchesters will no longer need to worry about killing God because Jack will be strong enough to kill Chuck instead.

What did you think of this week’s Supernatural episode? Do you think that Death is truly on the Winchesters side?  Is Jack being back a good thing? Are there hidden motives lurking? Let us know your thoughts below on tonight’s episode in the comments.

Make sure to continue the hunt by watching Supernatural next on its new night on Monday, March 16, at 8 pm EST on The CW Network.