Open on Supernatural season three: Dean’s made a deal with the Devil, he has a year to live, and his time is decaying fast. Sam sits in the Impala, finger-scanning over the text that he hopes might hold the answer to saving his elder brother’s Hell-bound soul. His eyes squint, the camera pans up, and we see that “The Book” that might just hold the answers to reclaiming Dean’s life from the demon he contracted it out to is … a copy of Dr. Faustus? (Wait—didn’t we have to read that in high school?) Sure, the book wrapped in worn leather and ink-block prints of the devil looks like it could resurrect the dead, but then again, while the text may not be the week’s bestseller, it’s still rather accessible for a book that could hold the key to finding Dean a get-out-of-Hell-free card. And really, when faced with such a dire predicament, seeking a soul-saving loophole from something available in SparkNotes seems up there with Your Pathway to Hell Gone Wrong and The Idiot’s Guide To Selling Your Soul as a rather dubious choice. It’s a fairly recent text as far as demonic manuscripts go, and aside from suspiciously resembling a filched library book, there is nothing to suggest that the particular copy Sam has clutched in his fist is any different from the rest.

Yet Sam is a Winchester, and by this point we have learned to believe that if  …