I love this episode. After half a season of beating on Dean emotionally, while all of Sam's crazy fit under the Hallucifer umbrella he could control with the button on his hand, Sam finally gets some horror from the outside.
From clowns.
I mean, Dean has to face some baggage from his childhood, as well, but it's not as dramatic as Sam getting pounded on by maniac clowns. Plus we get an actual (magically created, anyway) unicorn!
This whole episode just feels like a reprieve from their otherwise unrelenting series of losses, and we really needed the break right about now...
LINKS!
My Rewatch Notes from July 2019
Lizbob’s notes on Sam and Dean characterization that use this episode as one example
My fic Dean’s Days Off (14k, fluff, destiel) exploring what I always felt Dean was up to when he dumped Sam off at places like Plucky’s for a few hours
My rewatch notes from March 2016
Lizbob’s rewatch notes (long, but worth the read, because we might be the two largest appreciators of this episode in the world lol)