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Visions of hell, manic-depressive teddy bears and invisible peeing toms make this one more stellar episode.

The episode begins with a woman taking a shower, unaware she is being watched. When she steps out of the shower and walks to the mirror, she tosses her towel aside, and inadvertently drapes it on an invisible figure standing in the middle of the room. The Invisible Man (or in this case, Teen) sheepishly says “Hello, Mrs. Armstrong” right before she screams.

After the credits, Sam deals with a far-too-perky waiter and Dean being evasive as ever over his experiences in Hell. When Dean tries to change the subject, Sam explains it’s been a slow week for the supernatural – except for a woman in Concrete, Washington, who had a ghostly encounter in the show. Naturally, Dean jumps right on board for that one. In Concrete, Sam interviews Mrs. Washington under the pretense of researching for a book entitled “Supernatural.” Though Mrs. Washington seems to think she is lucky to be alive, she admits she fell down the stairs – instead of being pushed – and when she did so, the ghost helped her back up. Sam is distracted by the sight of the homely geek Wesley (Ted Raimi) passionately making out with a beautiful woman named Hope.

Sam and Dean are more than a little confused by their not-so-vengeful ghost, but then find something even stranger – rumors of Bigfoot. They follow the trail back to a raided liquor store, where “Bigfoot” apparently stole porn and liquor. After spotting a little girl with porn in her backpack, the Winchester follow the little girl – Audrey – back to her house, where she reveals her teddy bear is sick. Claiming to be “teddy bear” doctors, Sam and Dean follow Audrey up the stairs, where she opens the door to reveal a man-sized teddy bear drinking beer and yelling “close the friggin’ door!” At this point, even Sam and Dean are bewildered.

The Winchesters discern the teddy bear is depressed because there is nothing to life but tea parties. They don’t know what to do beyond that. Telling Audrey her teddy bear has “lollipop fever,” they leave with one crucial piece of info: Audrey wished for her teddy bear to come alive, just as her parents wished to go to Aruba. At a Chinese restaurant, the two brothers find a wishing well where Dean wishes for a sub sandwich – and promptly gets want he wants. This draws the attention of the restaurant owner, but the Winchesters pose as Health Department agents to take a closer look at the wishing well. They find an ancient coin stuck to the bottom of the well, but are unable to pick up with either their fingers or a crowbar. Sam traces the coin’s design onto a piece of paper and sends Dean to check into its origins. He then confronts the Invisible Teen – who we find wished to be invisible to spy on women in the shower. Sam catches him in the act, rebukes him – and tells him to put on some pants.

Dean, meanwhile, sees a picked-on kid chasing some mischievous bullies down the street. Dean hardly has time to notice, as he is met with a case of wicked indigestion. The wish has gone bad, he tells Sam from the bathroom – real bad. He traces the coin back to Babylonian god Tiamat, whose coins can bring wishing to a well, but so often, the wishes turn sour, as is the case with the sandwich in Dean’s stomach. The only way to break the curse is to find the first wisher and have him lift the coin of the well. Thankfully, they have the newspaper to track the surprise engagement of Wesley to the beautiful Hope.

The teddy bear tries to commit suicide, but soon finds a self-afflicted head wound cannot kill him. Things are even stranger for Wesley, who awakes to find his new fiancée has cooked him a miniature turkey dinner. Wesley tries to prod Hope into admitting she isn’t happy with him, but the confused Hope only agrees to “love him more.” Sam and Dean show up at Wesley’s doorstop – now as florists – and confront him over the coin, which Wesley reveals came from his grandfather. With some persuasion, Wesley agrees to come with the Winchesters back to the wishing well – but Hope hears everything in the other room.

On the way of the wishing well, Wesley complains of how easy guys like Sam and Dean have it. But their conversation is interrupted when the kid Dean saw chased down the street is now pushing over his tormentors’ car with his bare hands, screaming “Kneel before Todd!” Dean goes to deal with the kid while Sam and Wesley head onto the wishing well. Dean tries to talk some sense into the kid, but only receives a super-strong punch for his trouble. He ends up quickly overpowered by the boy. Meanwhile, Sam and Wesley reach the wishing well – only for Sam to be struck by lightning summoned by a desperate Hope. Realizing how much damage his wish has done, Wesley mournfully pulls out the coin, reversing everything – even Hope’s memory, as she no longer knows his name. He sadly hands over the coin back to Sam. Dean, for his part, pretends the boy still has his powers long enough to convince the bullies to stop picking on him.

At the end of the episode, Sam confirms the coin has been melting away. Audrey walks by with her parents – back from Aruba and clearly depressed about it – and her teddy bear, who is also return to normal, despite a piece of duck tape covering up his self-inflicted head wound. Dean apologizes to Sam and explains he does know what happened in Hell – every minute of it – but quite simply, words cannot describe it, and nothing Dean can say to Sam will change that. He apologizes, but maintains this is a burden he has to shoulder alone.

This is an outrageously funny episode proving Supernatural has more balls the entire NBC line-up. From a crazy teddy bear to Wesley’s bittersweet situation, this is one more near-perfect episode in a season which has been right on cue for the most part. I would have liked to have seen more of the teddy bear – I think he would have made a great character for the Winchesters to interact – but his surreal addition was one thing no one could have seen coming.

There were also a lot of cool in-jokes throughout the episodes. Obviously, “Kneel before Todd!” is a parody of the line from “Superman II.” More subtly, Sam’s excuse to Mrs. Armstrong that he is canvassing the country digging up stories for a book called Supernatural sounds suspiciously like Kripke’s original proposal for the series. Yet unlike “Hollywood Babylon” you weren’t left without a life raft if you didn’t quite get the various references.

I really think Kripke and company took the high road out of Hell. Keeping Dean’s experiences limited to a simple red-tinted shot of Dean’s eyes wide with terror really forces us to envision what hell must be like instead of laying it out in front of us. This makes the results that much more intriguing to watch – and the implications that much more terrifying. Still, Dean isn’t out of the frying pan yet – it seems he’ll be wrestling with his experiences in the Bad Place for at least one more episode.

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