#spn 10.18

[caliel66]

Day 13: Flirt (the worst pick up line ever - and the nerdiest)

[foxthefanboi]

10x18 - Book of the Damned

[mittensmorgul]

Hi Mittens, I’m the anon who asked about Christo. I’m sorry to cause any confusion. One example is how they treated Abbadon. Dean specifically outlines how they are going to make sure she’s dead by dismemberment and burying the pieces in concrete. They even repeat that scene in the episode previouslies where Abbadon comes back. So why didn’t they dispose of her like they proclaimed? Then they both leave the room to take the phone call and she escapes. 1 of 2.

2/2 It reminded me of them leaving the Styne brother alone in the dungeon and he escaped. Shouldn’t they know to lock the bad guys down more securely? Your anon who mentioned President Rooney reminded me of that strange situation with the golden egg. Why were they hanging around in the hotel room just to get caught by the feds? Shouldn’t they have freed him and ran? I feel they should be shown to be smarter. So is the writing face value for their characters or is the writing inconsistent?

Hi there! and thank you for writing back! It’s not a problem at all! I love answering questions if I can, and you’re lucky I have some answers to this one that you will hopefully find satisfying. :)

(note that I would put this under a cut, but tumblr has been breaking them lately, so I’m not gonna risk that... apologies for the very long post)

Let’s start with Abaddon, since that one is incredibly easy. They 100% did do exactly what they said they were gonna do to her. They very much did hack her up and bury her under concrete in/after 8.12. They thought they could use her as the demon for the cure in 8.22, though. They’d been trying to capture a demon, but Crowley had ordered all his demons to stay away from them.  Here, from the transcript of 8.22

DEAN: Could we take this hoodoo on a test drive?

SAM: Um, I mean, I have the exorcism right here. All we need is the blood, consecrated ground, and a demon. So, what? We summon a demon, trap it –

DEAN: Or – or we use one that we've already tagged. Do we still have dad's old army field surgeon's kit?

SAM: It's in the trunk. Why?

DEAN: Yeah, I think it's time we put humpty dumpty back together again.

*

They dug her up and stitched her back together (sans hands), and were intending to use her to perform the Third Trial. Hence the stitches holding her head on:

Agreed they were kinda dense leaving her alone, even without her hands attached, when their phone rang... Crowley was calling to blackmail them and it gave Abaddon time to escape. Which is why they ended up capturing and using Crowley for the Third Trial. 

Then in 8.23, when she shows up to tell Crowley that she’ll be taking over Hell now, Sam douses her with holy oil and lights her up. We don’t know definitively what happened to her or her remains after that point because A LOT happened at the end of 8.23, and “making sure abaddon was really dead-dead” was not at the top of Dean’s priority list, you know? Which is the state from which she was resurrected in 9.02...

But in between, she absolutely did spend half a season chopped up under concrete. This is not “bad writing” or incoherent continuity.

They didn’t really have a way to definitively “kill” her, you know? the best they could do was to trap her and bury her, but their own desperation to get the doors of hell slammed shut (which, if you know me you know I think is the biggest act of hubris the Winchesters have ever attempted to carry out) they didn’t really stop to think “hey maybe this is the worst idea.”

I also don’t think they knew that Abaddon had the power to command her hands to do her bidding when they were literally in a box on a table across the room from her... I mean, I would’ve been OVERLY cautious about that sort of thing just because, but I’ll forgive them because they were distracted, stressed, and overwhelmed. Sam was experiencing massive Trial Sickness, Dean was worried about him AND Cas, and then if that wasn’t enough, Crowley called to tell them he was methodically gonna kill everyone they ever saved until they gave in to his demands.

They were kinda distracted... ?

Okay, moving on to the next one: Eldon Styne and the Half-Assed Handcuff. Let’s start by remembering a few details about this Dumbass Scene.

1. It was Bucklemming... something in me always wonders if the crew deliberately fucks around with stuff in their episodes, like the ridiculously ill-fitting handcuff. because

2. this was 10.21, aka the most infamous and egregious example of that one square on the bucklemming bingo card: characters being dumb for plot. Or something like that. I don’t remember the exact wording, but basically having characters at entirely stupid because they need them to do A Plot Thing and can’t think of a better way to accomplish that.

3. this was 10.21, in which the cast, crew, and a good number of the other writers were essentially working under protest, because pretty much EVERYONE other than Carver, Singer, and Bucklemming objected to Charlie’s death.

4. Knowing point 3, please refer back to point 1.

But also, The Styne Family was possibly the STUPIDEST thing the show has ever done, as a whole. The derailing of s10′s overarching plot because whoopsie they were renewed, and Carver wouldn’t be ending the series at the end of s10 like he’d been planning, and oh no they’d come WAY too close to the end of some of their major character arcs and that couldn’t be allowed if the show was continuing, but... double whoopsie Carver was already in development on a new series that he’d obligated himself to, so mad scramble to pull SOMETHING out of his squid-shaped hat and for whatever reason they settled on freaking cartoonish supervillains the Frankenstein Family who had to be both terrifying up front (to pose a serious enough risk to take seriously at all) and then fold like cheap suits when confronted by one (1) MoC-Fueled Dean.

They were scary in 10.18, thanks to Robbie Thompson. It was that final reveal in that episode that let me know we were headed, though. The Styne Family Crest? Yeah, stolen from Young Frankenstein:

(image from the superwiki)

If you’ve never seen Young Frankenstein, please do. It’s freaking HILARIOUS. But it let me know that these were not the terrifying Big Bads we were expecting, they were a parody. They were set up to be Terrible People the rest of the writers could mock. They we were saddled with the atrocity that was 10.21. And Dabb finished them off in Badass Dean Style in 10.22. And that was it, never to be heard from again.

Disclaimer: I have written a whole heck of a lot about this (and about how this was possibly my least favorite thing the show has ever done). the back half of s10 is a hot mess, the Stynes were the worst villains ever (boring, stupid, easily defeated, etc.), and 10.21 in particular hits all the lows even for bucklemming... so I honestly won’t even attempt to defend this one. This was Bad Writing.

And finally, President Rooney... in 12.08, why did Sam and Dean stick around after Cas and Kelly fled? I’ll start this out by reminding everyone that this... surprise... was bucklemming again. Remember that bingo card I mentioned?

(lol I went and found it, credit for this one goes to @messier51 back in the olden days... https://messier51.tumblr.com/post/68535147632/buckleming-bingo  is the original post, from 2013)

and there it is, lower left corner, “Sam/Dean makes a decision that makes no sense.” This is a pattern for them, where they knew the end of the episode must have Sam and Dean being carted off to Black Ops Prison, and this was the best they could think of to get them there.

I’ve said before that I am willing to handwave a lot about this episode because of everything it will give to us down the line (12.09, Jack, it’s basically building the stage on which the rest of s12 is set). And I’ve previously offered the theory that they were Concerned For The President and making sure that he would live/suffer no repercussions of his possession by Lucifer. But I mean, the secret service dudes were literally on the other side of the door and would’ve been able to tend to him just as well, if not better. I think Sam and Dean may have-- in Bucklemming’s minds-- believed that they would be fine. They were only really worried about Kelly being caught there. They thought they would be viewed as “heroes who helped save the president” and not “dangerous threats attempting to kill the president.”

Agreed, it was a stupid thing to thing, especially since Rooney apparently didn’t remember his possession, and is never heard from again in-show. He couldn’t corroborate Sam and Dean’s story. I mean, they could’ve said they were staying in the room next door (it was an adjoining room, because Cas and Kelly sneaked out that door after the secret service guys stormed into the president’s room), and they could’ve just said they heard a ruckus, someone calling for help, and simply found him like that. But they didn’t know that one secret service agent had already been warned about them specifically by “President Lucifer.” That’s absolutely something they should’ve considered would happen, but uh... they didn’t, because bucklemming.

But yeah, that’s... a thing with these writers in particular... we try to acrobat our way around these sorts of things as best we can, and move on :’D

If you have any other questions, please let me know! Otherwise, please check out my tags for these specific episodes. I think I got them all on this post... 

[nancylou444]

samismyman87 replied to your post: I thought Charlie's reason for hunting was magic...

BTW I LOVED her Charlie-sue whine to Sam fucking Winchester about how hunting is the fun adventure she thought it was. Fucking Bitch

Holy crap I remember that promo clip and how I wanted to kick her ass.

CHARLIE: Brothers. You know, I haven’t been a hunter for very long, but it feels like this is the life. Mostly ends in Sophie’s choices, death, or tears. Usually, all of the above, huh? How did this become my life? I mean, I was gonna own my own start-up, marry ScarJo, invent something cool. Now I’m just….I’m just happy to be alive.

What the FUCK does she know about brothers? And who the fuck is she to complain about being a hunter?

Bitch deserved to end up dead in a bathtub with her shoes untied. 

[mittensmorgul]

Quick question going back to season 10: The woman who wrote The Book of the Damned, Agnes, had "visions of darkness" to write the book, including the spell that broke the MoC. I'm just wondering, where do you think those visions came from? Chuck wouldn't have supplied them, cuz he didn't want Amara getting free, right? So how did those visions get to Agnes?

Hi there! I’ll start by saying that the show has never come right out and said “this is how that happened, specifically.” So it’s up to us to put things together in a way that pleases us best, and meshes with the rest of canon. But this is not the first time this sort of mechanism has factored into the plot.

The way the story is constructed, and the way Dabb especially has been playing with all of canon during his era, has emphasized the relationship between every level of the story mirroring itself. The eternal spiral of the narrative, where each loop of the story itself gathers up themes and problems of the past, but also in-story, underscored by Gabriel in 5.08-- as above, so below.

I don’t know if it’s as much a matter of “Chuck didn’t want Amara to be freed,” but the very construct of the universe relies on this fact that the mundane had mirrored the cosmic, until two brothers and an angel said screw you to the cosmic order and tore up the pages. Ever since then, TFW has been wrenching the universe back around on itself, and every level of the story is now reflecting that. But it goes back even further than that...

I mean, in the original story, mirroring his own personal narrative of locking up Amara, Chuck locked away Lucifer with the Mark, knowing that one day he would be freed, and the Apocalypse would play out as he constructed it to do so. The nature of his own story sort of requires then that Amara would eventually be released, too, you see? And this “locking away” and eventual release is built into every level of Chuck’s narrative.

SAM If there's a key...then there has to be a lock. And when we find the lock, we can get the weapons, and then we can have the weapons. And the lock. We'll still have the lock, I imagine, because we've opened it, and, of course, the initial key.DEAN We need to get all three of that crap.

Okay, back to actual meta here. :’D

I mean, just going back to 4.22, when we saw Azazel murder all the nuns at the Ilchester convent, because that was apparently a place where the Cage was “closer to the surface” and with his sacrifice and spell he was able to communicate with Lucifer in the Cage. It was similarly implied that the nun who created the Book of the Damned carried on a similar communication with some force of Darkness-- be it with The Darkness or with Lucifer or with some other force connected to Amara where she was imprisoned, I’m not sure it’s entirely relevant. None of those theories contradict what we know of canon to this point.

So in the same way that Azazel was able to contact Lucifer, that nun contacted the Darkness or an agent of the Darkness. The very way that Chuck imprisoned Amara having a direct link to Lucifer via the Mark, and the fact that he imprisoned Lucifer in the same way connects their fates. As below, so above.

Whether Chuck “wanted” her free or not, His Story is the story of the entire universe, on every level, and so it must always have played out this way, regardless of what Chuck actually wished for, you know? He’s not all powerful, and he still must abide by his own “rules,” even if he’s the one who made all the rules.

Think about what happened when he was shot with the Hammurabi gun. He wasn’t immune from its effects. He wasn’t able to heal it or exempt himself from the effects of it. He can make up new rules on a whim, but he’s still bound by the direct results of those rules being put into action. And his rulebook has begun to break down now.

Lol, remember in 12.21 how we all collectively rolled our eyes nearly out of our heads over the whole “reversing the polarity” of Crowley’s spell controlling Lucifer? We all wondered what the point of that entire arc was? Well, jokes on us all, honestly, because Dabb has basically pulled that maneuver on Chuck himself...

Drexel: The device, it's cemented directly into your DNA and that of the King's. As it's powering down in you, the polarity is somehow reversing.

and even now, this is literally become the method of Chuck’s undoing...

Castiel: Why would God write the blueprint to His own death?Billie: He didn't. The books write themselves. After God made the world, He couldn't stop. He wanted more. But He needed to create a perfect harmony -- a Swiss watch so that this world could keep tick-tick-ticking in His absence. He had no choice but to build Himself into the framework. It's His only weakness.

“He had no choice but to build Himself into the framework. It’s His only weakness.”

And this goes for all of this sort of thing, throughout canon. It’s not like this is what he WANTS to happen, but it’s literally built into the framework of the universe.

As above so below, and the polarity reversed the second Amara was released...

[mittensmorgul]

How come when Cas was dying from his borrowed grace, he didn't just remove it and become human? That would have prevented him from dying, and allowed him to avoid killing another angel for its grace

Hi there! this feels tangentially related to the other anon I just replied to. Or at least from the same general region in canon (s9, s10). :’D

I’d venture to say you are absolutely correct there, but that’s also failing to take into account the entire reason Cas had stolen that grace to begin with… and again, a LOT of this centers around the issues Cas is STILL dealing with to this day, and what I hope will be resolved before the end of the series.

let’s look back at 9.06, first of all, and also recall Cas’s struggles throughout s9, and even going back to the final run of s8: redeeming himself for his mistakes, being “useful,” or as it’s framed much later, “getting a win.”

So much of Cas’s story is wrapped up in this essential conflict for him– of doing the right thing in a bigger picture sense, versus his own need to have a purpose. He was struggling with this even in s13, struggling to understand why he came back from the Empty, you know? He believed there had to be a specific reason, in a more cosmic sense, and Dean’s “because we needed you” wasn’t enough of a reason for him… because he translates “need” as “we need you because you fill this specific purpose. You take care of a job we can’t do without you.”  And not “we need you because you’re part of our family and we want you with us regardless of what you can do for us.” This has been something he’s been dealing with now through his relationship with Jack… even in s14, feeling that his “key” into the Winchester family was through his duty to raise and protect Jack… Cas… hasn’t yet fully understood that Dean wants him just because he wants him, not because Cas is useful to him somehow.

But going back to your specific question, since ALL of this characterization is part of the same Bigger Picture for Cas:

In s9 and s10, there were specific reasons Cas stole that grace in the first place, and then had been willing to let it slowly kill him. He considered his own actions “barbaric.” But it enabled him to get back in the fight, to have a real purpose again. Because as a human, what could he do to help with the mess in Heaven? That mess he felt at least tangentially responsible for (he had trusted Metatron, after all, and it was his grace that powered the spell that pushed all the other angels out of Heaven to make a mess on Earth…).

But he also felt a duty to do what he could for the Winchesters… and s9 was the season that truly began to clarify his motivations to himself, you know? He’d been pushed to choose between Heaven and Dean for years, and had chosen Dean so often because Dean had been on the “morally correct” side of the equation. Like in s4– Dean had wanted to protect creation from a plot to bring on the Apocalypse that Cas had been brainwashed into believing was the right thing, but was won over to the side of humanity in the end. And this has been Cas’s slow progression of character development ever since.

Metatron sort of forced his hand in s9, making that choice the Main Narrative Point of s9 for Cas (which I just went into detail in my last post, which you can read right here). That he would choose Dean over Heaven when truly pressed to make a clear and distinct choice. And then over s10, Cas was faced with this choice over and over again– from helping Hannah round up the “rogue angels” on Earth vs helping cure Dean of being a demon, and then making his entire mission about curing Dean of the Mark, or dying trying.

And he couldn’t do ANY of that– or so he believed– if he was a human. As long as Dean was effectively immortal, saddled with the Mark, Cas needed to be an angel.

I’ve seen a lot of gif sets and meta based on the fact that Cas has always only needed Dean to ask him to stay, but it’s NEVER been that simple. Because Cas… has always been divided between his desire to stay with Dean, and his feeling of duty to Heaven, his personal need to have a Bigger Purpose.

And Dean, very often, followed Cas’s lead. One example I’ve seen of a time where Dean failed to ask Cas to stay was 10.03 after Cas helped with the demon cure. But like… Cas prefaced their entire conversation with the fact there was a “female outside in the car,” waiting for him. Like Cas made that statement to preempt any notion Dean could’ve had about his intent or desire to stay. Cas had more important things to do, right? He wouldn’t want to stick around and babysit Dean. He’s already got a female in the car waiting for him. WHY WOULD DEAN HAVE EVEN ASKED CAS TO STAY WHEN HE SO OBVIOUSLY WANTED TO LEAVE FOR MORE IMPORTANT FEMALES WAITING FOR HIM IN THE CAR?!

Sorry, I just had to get that out there somewhere. The s15 mess is NOT all on Dean, or Dean’s failures to tell Cas to stay, you know? The miscommunication and misconceptions run both ways. They have both repeatedly shot themselves in the foot this way, and I am SICK TO FUCKING DEATH of seeing posts suggesting otherwise. Okay, now back to your question… :’D

Meanwhile, even before Crowley gave Cas his power-up with Adina’s grace, Cas was telling Hannah that saving Dean was his priority. He just… never made that clear to Dean, you know? But Cas himself was still torn in his duty:

CASTIEL: Um… We can’t afford to lose our way.HANNAH: I know that. I’m sorry about the map.CASTIEL: No detours of any kind.HANNAH: Castiel, if these are metaphors and you’re attempting another human communication … It isn’t working.CASTIEL: I’m just trying to say this mission is everything.HANNAH: I know that.CASTIEL: Getting to Dean and hunting these rogues … I—I’m not at full capacity, so I … we n-need total focus.HANNAH: Like a laser. Got it.CASTIEL: Just … I’ve been around humans for long enough to see how easily distractions occur.HANNAH: “Distractions.”CASTIEL: Emotions, feelings … They’re dangerous temptations.

He wasn’t just talking about Hannah. He was also reminding himself that Dean wasn’t his only mission. He has been trying to convince himself of that for a really long time, you know?

By the end of s10, he finally recovered his own grace and was no longer in danger of slowly being poisoned by stolen grace, and was now weaker but at least all “himself” again (and heck doesn’t this directly mirror a lot of Jack’s issues with his own loss of grace, the temporary solution they thought they’d found for him, his theft of Michael’s grace, and the damage he did to his own soul in the process). For the first time since Cas had been human, his grace having been stripped against his will, he felt capable of actively CHOOSING to stay with Dean, even if that meant “watching him murder the world” as he gave into the Mark. Like… it was not a pleasant, happy, or hopeful situation, you know? And then when Dean was “cured,” and doing so freed the Darkness… well, duty overrode desire yet again. They had bigger issues to deal with than what they might choose for themselves in a world that wasn’t in immediate danger of ending again.

And these are all issues Cas is still sorting through. It’s never been as simple as Dean just asking him to stay. And it’s never been as simple as Cas just wanting to be more human. There’s always been a Bigger Picture they both needed to consider, and what they each needed to do in order to save the world (and each other… because that’s the big elephant in the room between them), rather than making choices based on what they’d actually want for themselves.

Let’s all just blame Chuck.

[mittensmorgul]

Hey, since you're in the middle of rewatching right now I thought you might be a good supernatural expert to ask. There's a point in one of the later seasons (10-13?) where Sam says something to the equivalent of when Dean said, "I'm good with who I am," where he talks about how he wouldn't want to leave hunting again or settle down. Off the top of your head, do you remember what episode that's in?

Well, Sam’s said things along those lines several times, but to varying degrees...

in 10.18, when he was becoming desperate to save Dean from the Mark and conspiring with Charlie:

SAM: You know, when Dean came to get me at school, I-I told myself… one last job, you know? One more job. And then when – when I, um…. When I lost Jess, I, again, told myself one more job. There’s always one more job, you know? And one more job, and one more job, and then I was gonna go back to law and – and to my life.CHARLIE: You were the Dread Pirate Roberts of hunting.SAM: Yeah. I guess I really understand now that….this is my life. I love it. But I can’t do it without my brother. I don’t want to do it without my brother. And if he’s gone, then I don’t….

Is that the scene you were thinking of? There’s a general feeling of desperation, of his love of hunting with his drive to save Dean, similar to how he was at the beginning of s14, too, and his feelings have definitely evolved on the matter since then.

[mittensmorgul]

Season 10 Deleted Scenes

All of them, transcribed, for convenience purposes. Under a cut, because it’s like 2500 words. :)

(cut removed during the tumblr nippocalypse of 2018, rebloggable version with the cut: http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175987262890/season-10-deleted-scenes)

10.05 Fan Fiction

[Dean and Marie descend the stairs on their way to the Boiler Room] Marie: A friend at camp got me into the books, and then I got involved in fandom. I just, I love seeing all the different ways that people related to the story. We’d fight over different interpretations, same as with Theater Troupe. People just really see themselves in the characters. I’m a total Sam girl. Well, you’re a fan, you know? Who are you from the books? Dean: Uh, I guess you could call me a Dean girl. Marie: Yeah, I can see that. What I really love about the books though is family. My, uh, my parents died when I was three. I’ve been bouncing around different foster homes for years. So I’ve never really had anyone in my world that would lay down my life for me the way that my sweet Sammy would for Dean. Dean: Or, you know… (makes a vice-versa gesture with his hand) Marie: My point is, I really admire them. I just… I wish I had a sibling like that in my life. Dean: Well, I mean, it sounds like your friends in your, uh, theater group, you know with all that fighting, it sounds an awful lot like family to me. [long pause] Family don’t end with blood. Right? Marie: Yeah. I guess.

[Sam and Maeve in the library looking through books] Maeve: So you were a theater kid, huh? Sam: Uh, yeah, a bit. Maeve: How’d you get into it? Sam: I, um, my family moved around a lot… Maeve: Military kid? Sam: I guess you could say that, yeah. Didn’t have a lot of time to be kids, you know? Then I remember at one of the schools, I saw the theater kids putting on a show, and it felt like… like playing with toys, but in the real world. You know, like it seemed... fun. A, uh, chance to be someone else for a little while. Maeve: That’s what’s great about theater. Gets you into that sense of play, and then you can use that playfulness to illustrate important social messages, make a difference with the power of story. Sam: Is that why you’re so into Supernatural? Maeve: I like hot guys. And monsters. Mostly hot guys. Mostly Dean.

10.06 Ask Jeeves

[cut between close shots of several sets of eyes, then pull back to show Sam is playing cards against Heddy and Beverly. Sam takes the hand, and then Dean and Olivia walk in. Dean clears his throat to  get Sam’s attention, and he leaves the game to talk to Dean] Sam: You know what, excuse me.

10.07 Girls, Girls, Girls

[Castiel looks around a forest walking path and spots Hannah standing on a bridge over a small stream. He walks over to join her] Cas: What’s going on? Hannah: I’m sorry, Castiel. I’m not going with you. I’m done.

10.10 The Hunter Games

[Castiel walks down a sidewalk at night, passing a man sitting down against a building and several other people walking, and the neon sign for the Astoria Hotel is reflected upside-down on the hood of his car. He’s on the phone, leaving a voicemail for Claire.] Castiel: It’s me again. Claire, I don’t like the way we left things. We need to talk. [he considers hanging up, looks at his phone, then raises it back to his ear] In person. [he hesitates again, and the camera angle changes to just show him against a blurred background] I don’t know what you’re doing, or who you might be with, but I do know you can’t beat the monsters out there by becoming one. [he hangs up the phone, we see a low shot of him against the neon Astoria sign, and he walks off camera]

10.11 There’s No Place Like Home

[“Good Charlie” is driving with Sam at night, in her yellow Gremlin] Charlie: The Mark of Cain? Sam: Yep. Charlie: It is always something with you boys, isn’t it? Sam: I mean, he’s… he’s… you know, he’s working through it. So, anyways, what about you? You went to war in Oz? Charlie: Led an army of flying monkeys. Oh, and I flew a dragon, totally hooked up with Ozma, and that was just the first year. Uh, time passes differently in Oz. Sam: How was it? How was your adventure? Charlie: Did you not hear the part about the army of flying monkeys? And my dragon, who I named Biscuits? [she pauses for a minute and things feel heavier] Adventure is hard. War is… hard. Decisions are hard. Sam: What do you mean? Charlie: I didn’t let my inner Hyde out for a walk just to save Oz. I did it to save Dorothy. She became like a sister to me. A sister I never had. She was captured, they were torturing her. Dark Charlie saved her, and killed anyone who hurt Dorothy. [she is overcome with emotion]  I… I just… couldn’t let anything happen to her, you know? Sam: Sometimes you have to do the bad thing to do the good thing. Charlie: Doesn’t make it right, though, does it?

[Dean, sitting in the Impala before going in to the realtor’s office, and a security guard on a Segway pulls up beside him and raps on the roof to get Dean’s attention. Dean looks up at him through the window, and sees himself reflected in stereo in the guard’s mirrored sunglasses] Officer: This isn’t a park, pal. You got business inside? Dean: Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna buy a home, a house. Officer: Well, get to it. Otherwise, it’s time to move. Dean: Yeah, yeah. I got it. Thanks. [the security guard Segways away] Dean [sarcastically under his breath]: Nice wheels. [as Dean walks toward the real estate office, the guard follows behind him on his Segway. Dean slows down, knowing he’s being followed, and turns around to give the guard a glare]

10.14 The Executioner’s Song

[in Crowley’s throne room, Rowena and Crowley sit utterly bored by boring demon business. A demon is making a presentation with a slideshow presentation on a tv cart.] Demon: … contract, in perpetuity, binding terms. These are bummer words. So, deal numbers are stable, but they could be better. [the slide on screen wipes to a picture of a crossroads with the words, “Is your life at a crossroads?” superimposed] My focus group analytics suggest if our crossroads demons just avoid these negatively valenced expressions [the slide fills the screen, now a picture of an open road reading “Opportunities for Growth,” and then wiping to a tropical beach reading “Live the dream!” and then a smiling woman’s face and “Guaranteed Results.], instead adopting words from my more positively charged lexicon, we can boost our conversion rate by, at minimum, three percent. [the demon continues talking in the background as Rowena leans in to talk to Crowley] Rowena: Is it just me, or is this one as thick as mince? Crowley: Could be an act. Crossroads demons come across as desperate car salesmen. [back to the demon’s presentation monitor, which is now just a blue screen with some clouds that reads “Awesome”] Crowley: Using the word “awesome.” [he laughs and then sighs] I can imagine it. Eh, I’m all for boosting numbers, but style is still important. Rowena: Tell me about it. Witches today-- I’m sorry, wiccans-- they’re slobs. They think they can pull off the look with one trip to the shopping center for some purple lipstick and a henna tattoo. Bob’s your uncle. Fan is your aunt. Done. Presentation Demon: [standing in front of a graphic that says “Make people want you!] King?  Should I just stop? Crowley: Did I ask you to stop? [simultaneously with Rowena] Did he ask you to stop? [Crowley and Rowena exchange a glance, and then we pan back to the demon’s presentation, with the graphic “Find love!] Demon: No sir. Uh, there’s no reason we can’t achieve the same results here.

[Cas walks into the barn carrying a duffel bag, and sets it down on a hay bale. Crowley is loitering around the barn] Crowley: Looking a little wan there, Cassie. How’s that grace of yours holding up. Cas [his attention pointedly focused on the contents of his bag]: It’s fine, Crowley. Crowley: Fine. Sure. The clock’s ticking again, isn’t it. So heroic. Running errands all over the U.S. , burning through that rather finite supply of grace, all in a desperate effort to save your boyfriend. Cas: What about you, Crowley. Dropping everything, bringing the First Blade. Surely it cost you something to be here. [Cas hands Crowley a can of spray paint] Maybe he’s your boyfriend. [Crowley looks up at the hay loft where Dean is holding his arm where the MoC is and restlessly waiting] Crowley: Not my type.

10.18 Book of the Damned

[Sam and Charlie are in the cabin. Charlie tosses a log on the fire and then approaches Sam and he shuts his laptop, and he’d seemingly been making notes] Charlie: What do you got? Sam: Nothing. It’s, uh, it’s a long shot. Maybe someone who might be able to help. It’s probably a dead end, but I gotta kick all the tires, all right? Charlie: Yeah, uh… I… [Dean returns to the cabin after being attacked by the Stynes at the convenience store] Charlie: What’s going on? Dean: The Stynes. They found me, and I’m pretty sure they followed.

10.23 Brother’s Keeper

[Dean’s sitting in a bar having a beer, where a scantily-clad blonde bartender brings him a shot of whiskey] Bartender [leaning over the bar showing off her assets]: Looks like you have an admirer. Dean: You sure it ain’t you? [the bartender gives him a look, touches the side of Dean’s nose, and walks away, revealing Cas sitting at the other side of the bar, bloody the way Dean had left him in the previous episode. Dean goes to toast “his admirer” with the shot of whiskey, and Cas only gives him a hard look through the blood on his face] Dean: And? Did you come to apologize? [Cas just keeps staring, so Dean shakes his head and downs the whiskey, When he looks back at Cas, Cas has vanished] Dean: Yeah, I didn’t think so. [Crowley, along with his favorite pitchfork-garnished cocktail,  appears on the stool beside Dean when he goes back to drinking his beer] Crowley: So this is how you dream. Really? Stale beer, sticky bar. [he swipes his finger across the bar top] Eyagh, what is this, syphilis? About the only thing you got right was the bartender. Dean [waggling his beer bottle]: Well, they don’t call ‘em dry dreams for nothin’’. Now beat it. This is me time. Crowley: Sorry, squirrel. It’s really me. Well, me inside your dream. Which is about as close as I’m willing to get since Moose tried to cash my chips. Dean: Really? Hm. I’m sorry he missed. Crowley: Apparently, he’s been working with my mom to come up with some kind of cure for the Mark of Cain. Dean: Yeah, well, that’s, um. That’s over. Crowley: Is it? My mother working with your brother to kill me to save you. It’s all become one great big telenovela, hasn’t it? [they both sip their drinks and Crowley hums appreciatively] Crowley: Still, Can’t help wondering how much sturm and drang could’ve been avoided if only… Dean: If only what? Crowley: It is ironic, isn’t it? After rejecting my more than generous offer to be my right hand man, here you are, in a bar, in the throes of the Mark, with me. Again. I hate to say it, Dean, but at the risk of taking this dream in a totally different direction, we complete each other. Dean: Aw, Crowley. I’m nothing like you. I never will be. [Dean sips from his El Sol beer] Crowley: Actually, you’re much worse. Insane man doesn’t know he’s insane. [Dean smashes his beer bottle against the bar and brandishes it at Crowley] Dean [quiet and ice cold]: I’m nothing like you. Crowley: Hey, it’s your dream. Good luck when you [he snaps his fingers and the clip ends]

[pan over the mountain of books in the bunker library that the Stynes stacked up to be burned, to find Sam on hands and knees with a bucket and mop, sponging up the Stynes’ blood from the floor. He notices something in the pile, and stops cleaning to investigate. It’s Dean’s picture of Mary holding baby Sam and toddler Dean in front of their old house. He also finds the picture of Mary hugging little Dean.]

[In the warehouse where Rowena is working and Cas is keeping watch, pacing behind her] Rowena: You’re delusional, tweetie-pie. You really expected Crowley to help yeh. Cas: Well, he said he would. Rowena: Huh. He said he would. That’s practically a blood oath right there. My mistake for assuming otherwise. Cas: Why would you want to assassinate your son in the first place? Under any circumstances? Rowena: Are you joking? Cas: No. That would be uncharacteristic of me. Although I have been told that I’m… I’m getting funnier. Rowena: Well, my son, aside from being a nocht blowhard, suffers from the same malady as you, I’m afraid. Winchester Derangement Syndrome. Cas: Oh, is that so. Well, I feel fine. Rowena: Please. An angel of the Lord, the king of Hell. More power than I could possibly dream of, utterly wasted, shattered at the altar of a Winchester. I may be the one in chains, but the two of you are just as much a prisoner as I am. It saddens me. No. It totally sickens me to see so much power go unspent, so much glory unclaimed. Cas: Glory? Oh, I’ve seen glory. And I’ve seen defeat. But I have seen the glory. I have won epic battles, and I have reaped vast rewards. And none of it has meant as much to me as the relationships that I’ve formed on Earth. Sam and Dean? They are like a family to me. Claire Novak? When she smiled at me? Nothing, no angelic crusade or victor’s bounty, none of that could ever hold a candle to that sweet, crooked smile. Rowena: You can’t honestly think you’re happier now, broken winged suckup. Cas: All I know is that for the first time in a long time, I feel at peace with who I am. Whatever that may be. Rowena: A bitch. Cas: Oh, I can assure you. If there’s one thing I am not, it is a female dog.