(pt. 1)

Remmy: I know, building tension. They leave us like this, and we have a brief scene where we cut to Donna waking up on the side of the highway. She's sprawled in her cop car — we assume that Nick put her in her squad car — but she blinks awake and then next we see Dean waking up to a phone call. His phone is on the couch arm table — what's it called?

Bea: Yeah, the side table beside this couch.

Remmy: The side table beside the couch, and he pulls his phone and he looks at it, and he says, "What the hell," but the phone stops ringing and —

Bea: No, the phone keeps ringing. That's the thing; he tried to answer his phone and then oh, no, that didn't work. "I'm still too sleepy to really piece together why," but he realizes it's not his phone that's ringing.

Remmy: Oh! Oh, I thought that he called that — Okay, I get it. I get it now. I didn't realize it wasn't his phone ringing. I thought that she called Dean, it went to voicemail because he wasn't fast enough to answer the phone. But no. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. It's not his phone ringing. It is Mary's phone across the room, charging in the hallway. And so he sleepwalks his way over to the hallway and he answers the phone. He says, "Donna, what the hell?" and Donna says, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He got the jump on me."

Bea: Yeah, and outside unbeknownst to Dean, Mary has left that outbuilding and she's surprised by Nick standing right there, basically being like, "Hello."

Remmy: Yep. Yep.

Bea: And yeah, so Dean gets that heads-up from Donna's phone call and he goes outside, and he is surprised by Sam.

Remmy: Right. Right. I have two consecutive notes. It was "surprise Nick!" and then "surprise Sam!"

Bea: My notes were the — were you paying attention to the lamp beside where Mary cell phone was charging?

Remmy: Oh, yeah that goat leg?

Bea: Yeah, this little hoof, this ungulate hoof. I was like, "Donna?" I mean, keep being you but that’s quite the aesthetic you got going on here. [laughs]

Remmy: [laughs] I love it. Dean is surprised in the dark by Sam and Sam is like, "Whoa, nelly, calm the f*** down. Dean, what is wrong?" He is very much alarmed now.

Bea: And when he whips around, the sound effect that happened makes it sound like a gunshot. The background music is spooking us a little bit too. And yeah, so like you say, Sam demands to know what's going on, but Dean, all he says is that Mary's gone. "Mom's gone."

Remmy: Which is surprising. I mean, you know what Sam's thinking. He's thinking this has to do with what the hell bug is up Dean's butt, but no no no, this is something completely different. Mary went missing.

Bea: Mom's gone!

Remmy: Mom's gone, but we have Nick and Mary in the creeper van.

Bea: Yes, they have been parked, I guess, just on one of these grid roads, and he's monologuing at her, essentially catching up to the fact that demons have been tracking Mary, Sam, and Dean. They've been keeping an eye out where they are so that they could be everywhere else.

Remmy: Uh-huh, anywhere else but where a Winchester is. Seems like a good self-preservation tactic.

Bea: Yeah. 200 miles in any direction. [laughs]

Remmy: Oh my gosh.

Bea: Then Nick is explaining how he used the demon’s intel, and then when Donna was tased [he] went through her phone to find out more information about the emails that were going on between her and Mary, basically, setting up the cabin.

Remmy: Yeah, and he does a little full body shrug and hand gesture, "And here we are." And Mary.

Bea: She's just [laughs] she's so done.

Remmy: Mary's looking to Nick like — and she says, "Nick, what are you doing?"

Bea: And he's like, "Wait, no, I'm not done my monologue. Let me continue."

Remmy: [laughs] He's like, "I'm getting there." No, but he — yeah, he goes on to say... Well, he namedrops. He says, “Tanya Baker,” and he's waiting for a reaction. But he goes on to say, "Tanya Baker; you saved her. You're the reason she's alive. Her entire girls scout troop was murdered, slow and bloody and brutal, but she's still alive thanks to you. The demon that you fought off to save this girl was Abraxas, the demon that murdered my family the same way that he murdered those people that you failed to save."

Bea: Yes, and Mary starts off by apologizing for what he went through and then pivoting at the end being like, "You know you didn't have to kidnap me to talk to me about this, right?" [laughs]

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. Mary is honestly confused. This is a sharp left turn from what she knows of Nick, this broken man who was Lucifer's vessel. She is wary, but she doesn't really — she's still playing catch-up. She doesn't know what's going on. She doesn't know why Nick is going to these extremes. She says, "You could have just asked me, Nick. We didn't have to do this," and Nick gets in her face. And again, talking about Mary being wary, when Nick comes to Mary, she's definitely not comfortable with this whole situation no matter how she's playing to her and Nick's familiarity with each other. Nick says, "Well then, what would you have told me if I had just asked?"

Bea: Yes, and she goes, "Well, I would have told you that I killed him," and he goes, "Ah, so you would have lied."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: Mary did not kill Abraxas but instead trapped him, and then Mary fesses up. "Okay. Yeah, I put him in an Enochian puzzle box."

Remmy: "But he's contained." It's over.

Bea: Yes, but Nick isn't satisfied with that. He wants to know where Abraxas is.

Remmy: He asks if she has the box and she says no, but I could tell you where. "I can show you where it is."

Bea: Yes, and so we leave on that note. Then Nick takes off in the van and they show up at the storage unit place where there's a lone security guard at his post that they drive by.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, we — well, after, we go straight to the storage facility, but we don't see anymore of Mary and Nick. We cut to Donna, Sam, and Dean at the cabin, and Donna is just apologizing. She's distraught. She's like, "I don't — he got the drop on me. And this is my fault."

Bea: Yeah, and, "Here's how I'm trying to make amends," like, "I have my guys out there looking for him," but she just feels like it's on her. And then Sam's like, "I see your guilt and I raise you one, because I feel like this is my fault."

Remmy: Yeah, because when Donna was initially on the phone with Dean, she did drop Nick's name. She said, "Some guy named Nick," which Donna may not have known who that was, but Dean sure as heck does. Now Sam is here and Sam says, "It's my fault because I'm the one who extended a hand to Nick, and I just let him go off into the world. The last I talked to Nick," he says, "Nick said he was just going home. I had no idea that he was —" and Dean cuts in harshly to say, "He was murdering people."

Bea: Yeah, that the note that Sam believed they had left on was that Nick just wanted to go home. He wanted to go to his roots. But in the time since they last saw him, conversation between them has clearly dropped off because he had no idea that this is what was going on instead, that Nick was doing an across the country murderville.

Remmy: Yeah, and as Dean and Sam have their little — well, I should say, as Dean delivers his little smackdown — and Sam does seem struck by it — it's being radioed in to Donna that they have a location on the van. It was just picked up by the security cameras at the storage facility just outside the Grand Rapids.

Bea: Yeah, and so Dean's asking how far away that is. Donna says, "About 30 — 40 minutes," and so Dean's like, "Cool. So 20 minutes. I'm going to take a shortcut, drive 160 [kph]."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: Kilometers. Sorry, that'd be a little excessive in miles.

Remmy: [laughs] It would be. I was just going to agree with you either way.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. Um, we're now back with Mary and Nick, and they open up the door to the storage unit. Mary — me, I don't know if this is my knowledge going into it on the re-watch, or if I felt the same way watching it for the first time — but Mary's kind of hanging back and I'm having vivid flashbacks to all of Bobby's booby traps on his storage units in previous seasons. Because she's indicating, "After you, Nick." [laughs]

Bea: Yeah, and I find — leading up into the scene as well as the scenes that carry afterwards — that Mary's doing a very passive form of resistance, but it's resistance nonetheless.

Remmy: Oh, yeah.

Bea: She's sidestepping questions. She's giving vague answers or giving incorrect answers, but she's just generally giving this impression [that] she's dragging her heels the whole way without being over-obvious. I just really liked it as her form of resistance, that she's doing in this moment.

Remmy: Yeah, I liked it a lot.

Bea: And did you notice that — okay. So there was the combo on the door and Mary put it in, and it was Dean's birthday?

Remmy: [chokes] Oh my God, you can't do that when I'm drinking. [laughs]

Bea: [laughs] You can't drink while I'm doing that.

Remmy: No, I didn't notice what the — oh my God. No, I didn't know that was the combo.

Bea: Mhmm.

Remmy: She was... [sighs] oh. Okay.

Bea: Yeah, because she was standing outside the door and she just like, "What can you do? I guess it's locked," and he's like, "You can unlock it." She's like, "Mmm, I need both hands," but he's like, "You have both hands, so do it."

Remmy: Yeah, like you said, those small resistances. She's stalling, but I don't even know that she's stalling to wait; she's just stalling to be a nuisance.

Bea: I totally agree. I think that she's just genuinely like, "Okay, he seems to be trying to plan s*** in the moment, so I'm just going to Raggedy Ann doll myself here. He's gonna have a 130 lbs dead weight that he has to drag everywhere because I'm not helping him voluntarily in the slightest."

Remmy: Exactly. No, I didn't notice that it was Dean's birthday. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, like you're saying, the storage locker is evoking that feeling of booby traps by Bobby. Then we go inside and Mary's not walking forward, and [Nick]’s like, "Okay, where is it?" and she's like, "I don't know. I guess it's over there," and he's like, "... Cool. Are you gonna walk towards it?" And she's like, "I guess if I have to..." She's just [laughs] I love it. I love it.

Remmy: [laughs] I liked it a lot. It was great. She walks. She's like, "Fine," and she walks forward and we see her step over a tripwire. She beckons Nick over but Nick catches it out.

Bea: Yeah, he has said that, "After this, I'll let you go," so she's a little bit more helpful, but she still is, from the corner of her eye, looking to see if he's going to get a belly full of shotgun.

Remmy: Uh-huh.

Bea: And yeah, so close but so far.

Remmy: And I'm like, ballsy Nick, kicking at the tripwire once he notices it. [laughs] When he does notice the tripwire, he does push at it a bit to try to follow the path up, and he discovers that there's a shotgun at — like you said, a belly full of buckshot on the shelving units to his side.

Bea: [laughs] Mary's face.

Remmy: Follows the wire up — I know! — he follows the wire up. He uncovers the shotgun and he's like, "Clever. Okay. Cute," and he steps over the tripwire, then cuts the wire as well. But Mary's just like, ehh. "Shucks."

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: Yeah, her face is great. Especially there is Lucifer — "Lucifer" [scoffs] — Nick asks where the puzzle box is and Mary says in the lockers, and the lockers [are] behind a chain link fence door, and the door has a padlock on it. She's like, "Ah, too bad I didn't bring the keys."

Bea: Yeah. "Aw, shucks."

Remmy: Just every step of the way, being a nuisance and dragging her feet.

Bea: It was a really fun way to see her character too. Because if Dean or Sam were in a similar position, there would be maybe more snark from Dean or just more reasoning from Sam, but here is Mary, and she's just genuinely analyzed [it] like, "No, he can't be reasoned with because he's on this mission, and so I'm just going to be a bump on the log, as best I can, in hopes that I'm going to get noticed that I'm missing. Then we'll get someone coming to find me."

Remmy: Or, talking about Sam and Dean, they try to rile their enemy up and then they get their golden opportunity to free themselves and kill the bad guy. Now, Mary is doing the same thing. She's riling Nick up. She's making him more and more agitated with every piece of snark she throws his way, as subdued as the snark is. She may not be waiting for the cavalry to arrive. She may be waiting for her opportunity to come to save herself.

Bea: I think you're right. I think you're right, especially with what we see later.

Remmy: Yeah. And so Mary's like, "Oop, I don't have the keys," and Nick says, "Oop, here's a hammer," and he gets the lock off the door. He says, "Which locker is it in?" and she just shrugs. He's like, "Okay, you want to play it that way," and he starts banging the locks off of every locker. I'm thinking, is one of these booby-trapped? I'm sure... [laughs]

Bea: It would be nice, yeah. [laughs]

Remmy: And he starts opening the lockers. One has a decapitated... something.

Bea: It's a decapitated head, and I really feel like it was a call to Silence of the Lambs.

Remmy: Oh, yeah?

Bea: Yeah, because when Clarice was searching through that one storage locker — storage unit, I should say — and she’s searching through all of the creepy detritus, the thing that she comes upon is this head in a jar that is... pickled, for lack of a better word.

Remmy: Oh my gosh, that makes me think the next locker that he opens, it's a dummy wrapped in tarp plastic, and I wonder if that's a call to one of the Chucky movies where they sunk the doll in brick and plastic to get out of it.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't place that one as easily. But the first one was just very strongly the first victim of Buffalo Bill. And then finally door number three.

Remmy: Yeah, talk about movie callbacks. How about that Hellraiser puzzle box?

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: He pulls it from the locker and Mary is going to continue to be unhelpful in opening it. He asks, "How do you open this damn thing?" and she tries to appeal to him to say, "What do you even see happening here?"

Bea: Yeah, what are you doing? You didn't think this through.

Remmy: Yeah. He says, "I need to talk with this guy," this guy being Abraxas, and Mary says, "You didn't think this through, did you? A demon needs a host and you can't be the host. I can't be the host," and she shows off her anti-possession tattoo. I'm like, don't do that! Don't do that.

Bea: Yeah!

Remmy: Do you want him to chop you up? Okay.

Bea: Yeah, I really felt like it was... yeah.

Remmy: Yeah. I got nervous when she showed him the tattoo. Nick says, "Well, we'll just have to improvise then."

Bea: Yeah, he's not — he's still determined along his path.

Remmy: Oh yeah.

Bea: There's all these setbacks that Mary is, essentially, throwing at him, but outside...

Remmy: But outside, in the meantime, we're with Sam and Dean in the Impala.

Bea: Yes. We see that there's this convoy, if two cars could be considered a convoy. Donna's leading the way in her vehicle with the lights on so they can speed to their heart's content, and Sam and Dean are sitting in what seems to be an uneasy silence. Some tension is going on in the Impala.

Remmy: And Sam just bursts out with it. He comes out with it and he says, "Dean just say it. I know you want to say it. So just f****** say it."

Bea: Yeah, and so, "Nick — Nick is not a project," is what — Dean's just ready. It's on the tip of his tongue.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: He says he's not a puppy, and it was a stupid move to try and help him.

Remmy: Yeah. He says, "Nick was Lucifer's vessel for years, and what did you expect? What did you think was going to happen, Sam? He wasn't just going to bounce back from that." And Sam, that's the thing that gets Sam up in arms, because at first Sam's just kind of takes it when Dean lashes out to say, "He's not your pet project. You weren't going to fix him." But with the call on the fact, the reason why Dean sees Nick as irredeemable is because he was Lucifer's vessel, Sam says, "That could have been me. I am Lucifer's vessel. If one thing had gone differently in our past then that could have been me, easily. And so, yeah, I did feel that I needed to give Nick a chance."

Bea: Yeah, and, "Why is this stupid, to have compassion? Since when do we give up on people? That's never been our credence."

Remmy: Yeah, and Dean comes in to say — and I think he's projecting a little bit, obviously, here when he says, "You just don't know when to let go. Sometimes you do have to just give up on people and say enough is enough, and you can't save everybody."

Bea: Yeah, that some are just past the point of saving.

Remmy: [drawn out] Yeah.

Bea: Woof.

Remmy: [strained laugh]

Bea: So this scene, I was thinking about it. Why is Dean so adamantly on this side? And I think it is just because he never saw Nick. He wasn't there at all for Nick being a thing; he was possessed by Michael when Lucifer died, and after that bailed when Nick was a fixture in the bunker. Sam would have seen him while he was tortured by these nightmares; when he couldn't sleep; when he was going through these terrible situations. Sam was genuinely trying to help him, and nurse him back to health, even though this was something that was really difficult for him, for the fact that this is Lucifer's vessel. Sam did show compassion and did get him back to a point where he seemed like a calm, normal person, and so for the opportunity for Nick to go home, okay, he took it and then this is what came from that. Sam is torn in this place of, "Well, I thought that he got better, but could I have predicted that it would go wrong?"

Remmy: And Sam is trying to put the blame on himself. But me, I'm like, no, you could not have predicted that this would have gone wrong. Me, at Dean, I'm like, Dean why are you leaning into the so hard? What exactly was Sam supposed to do, kill the guy? But you're right.

Bea: I think it's genuinely like Dean didn't have any sort of context for Nick, so what he's hearing [is] “Oh, Nick's alive? Oh, and he's been killing people? So why the f*** did we let that happen?”

Remmy: That's such a great point. That's something that I did not even think about. Yeah. Yeah, for Dean it would just be that black and white. That's awesome. Sorry. I'm having a 'aww, I'm so glad we're friends' moment.

Bea: [laughs] I didn't even think about this on the first re-watch, when I watched it on Wednesday. It took today's re-watch and I was like, oh s***, that would be why. I was trying to time it, and when Dean came back in the bunker Nick was already gone. He left his emo note on the pillow and left.

Remmy: Yep. Yep.

Bea: So yeah, all the little details.

Remmy: [laughs] I know, so many little... Oh my God, so many little things. So many different ways. Because [for] me, Dean is leaning into the so hard because he's trying to tell Sam without telling him that some people are just past saving and there's nothing you can do.

Bea: I think you're right on that too.

Remmy: Calling to his own situation, current situation. Yeah, but you're just absolutely on-point to say that Dean does not have any context and it is just that black and white. We are [chuckles] away from that little horribleness of a broment — stop sullying the Impala, guys. Impala broments are for pure growth, and... [laughs]

Bea: Yes, stop saying mean things to each other!

Remmy: I know. There's only like 20 episodes left! Don't you guys know?

Bea: [softly] Yeah. And we are essentially left in a stalemate, and they really have nothing that they can say to each other right now without... It's just going to inflame the conversation. So they've both said their bit and cool, we're falling back into that tension again.

Remmy: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We're back at the storage unit. Nick has now kidnapped — hogtied — the storage security guy. He's tied to a chair in the middle of a devil's trap.

Bea: Yes, Nick has the puzzle box. "Okay, we have the security dude. He's in the middle of a devil's trap. I'm going to open this box and we're going to fill him full of demon," and he just doesn't know how to open the box.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. He makes one go at it. And it doesn't work. He throws it to the ground in frustration. And at that crest of his ire, his frustration, Mary makes a go at Nick.

Bea: Yeah. She has a moment where she can attack him from the back, even though she still has her arms tied up. She's like, "You know what? F*** this. We're going to take him," and unfortunately, it's not really enough to put him down.

Remmy: Yeah, Mary makes a go. She gets beat down. She accuses Lucifer — [disbelieving] Lucifer — she accuses Nick of not thinking this through and he's gonna get them all killed, but Nick needs answers. He says, "Well, there's more than one way to crack an egg," and he finds a drill, plugs into the wall, and then it drills straight into and through the puzzle box.

Bea: Yeah, he uses the tank approach to the puzzle here; we're just gonna breach straight through.

Remmy: Uh-huh, and the black demon smoke escapes and takes over this guy.

Bea: Jeff.

Remmy: Jeff. Sorry, Jeff.

Bea: Jeff the security dude.

Remmy: Jeff the security dude. We now have Abraxas tied to a chair in the middle of a devil's trap, and the first thing he does is leer at Mary and say, "Hey, Blondie."

Bea: Yeah, he recognizes her. I have written down here, WILD HAIR!! This guy was cast awesomely to play first an innocuous character and then a sinister one. A+ dude. You were good.

Remmy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We didn't really talk about him, but Jeff, he was acting the scared civilian like, "What? What are you gonna do? What's going on? What?"

Bea: Yeah, and then a complete demeanor change as soon as he becomes Abraxas. So like you said, he recognizes Mary. He doesn't recognize Nick, and Nick's kind of pressing like, "Don't you know me?" and he's like, "Nah, you're going to have to be more specific. Okay, I murdered your family, cool. That puts you on a long list."

Remmy: Uh-huh, and Nick drops — which I now cannot remember the...

Bea: Pike Creek, Delaware.

Remmy: Yes, he namedrops, "Pike Creek, Delaware. Is that specific enough for you?" and Abraxas, yeah, that is specific enough because he says, "Ah, Nick." Basically a 'well, I'll be damned' moment.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah. "How is this not Lucifer who I'm talking to?"

Remmy: He says, "What are you doing walking and talking all on your own?"

Bea: And here, Nick says, "Well, Lucifer's dead, and you have to answer my questions," and Abraxas goes, "Well, I guess I could answer if you kill Mary, nice and slow. The bloodier, the better," on and on that route.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. He says, "Kill her slow and then we'll chat." And Mary, oh Mary. I don't even know how to describe this. She scoffs at the very idea that Nick is going to turn on her because so far, as far as Mary knows, Nick hasn't done anything.

Bea: He's just off his rocker.

Remmy: Right. He's just being reckless. He's seeking vengeance and he's just being reckless doing it, but he hasn't really done anything except for, I guess, he did just get this poor dude possessed.

Bea: He's escalating it really quickly here, and so she thinks, "Okay, that's going to be way too far of an escalation for him to follow," and yet Nick pauses and he's like, "Oh, okay." He goes and grabs a weapon. So here is the part that I would like to talk about that episode 7 Nick vs. this Nick, because it was Mary's moment here where she initially looked like, "No, there's no way he's going to do that," and then she turned to, "Oh, he's gonna do that," that I was like, I'm frustrated again with how the episode 7 played out.

Remmy: Is it because this is what you wanted? This here is what you wanted to see from Nick in episode 7? Or does it just seem like it's too much of a...

Bea: It seems out of order, is what it feels like to me.

Remmy: Oh, yeah.

Bea: Because the whole issue, or at least the primary issue that we had an episode 7, was that there was this pivot at the end of it away from Nick being concerned about his family. Who murdered them was almost incidental in that moment; he was more about his prayer to Lucifer and wanting that, that that's where he ended. Then we come back to this episode where it's like, okay, that didn't happen? Because he's back on the quest for the truth about family; he cares about that again. And so I feel like this moment where Mary initially scoffs at it and then goes, "Oh, wait," that would have had so much more punch had episode 7 carried through Nick's story in a more coherent manner.

Remmy: Yeah, because us, as the viewer, we already know that Nick is beyond any and all redemption. I don't know.

Bea: This whole episode has been keeping things in the shadows from us and what's going to happen. It's keeping things in the shadows from the characters. So for us, as the viewer, to be like “What is Dean doing?” and then Mary and Sam be like, "What is Dean doing?" and yet we're sitting here as the audience going — we know what Nick's doing.

Remmy: But the characters, conversely, are, "What is Nick doing?"

Bea: But we don't get to sit there with them, I guess, is my issue.

Remmy: Oh, yeah, exactly.

Bea: The structure of this episode has so many parts where you are left guessing [at] what's going to happen, and yet this was one [where] Mary's having this moment and I'm not at all there with her because I'm like, of course Nick is going to do it. There was that element of suspense that was completely lost even though it was attempted, and it was because of this seemingly sidestep that happened a couple episodes back.

Remmy: And it really was just that one scene, that one ending note, that was Nick's prayer to Lucifer. If we had ended on when he killed Frank Kellogg after he learned of Abraxas, without that Lucifer prayer, that would carry — that could more cohesively carry forward to this episode, as we see Nick now. But with that one Lucifer prayer, we have totally...

Bea: Undermined the other direction that we could go with it.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: If you really need that Lucifer scene there, because I'm like, "Where else could you fit it?" it would be in the next episode that we have with Nick.

Remmy: Oh, yeah.

Bea: If you really needed it in [episode] 7, maybe just some more uncertainty with the way that… He just seems so, "Ohh, I nut when I kill people. I'm all about this," rather than, "I hate how good this feels and I don't want to be doing this, I don't want..." There was no wrestling with it. It felt more like he had given in to the fact that he liked killing at the end of 7, so now when we get to this episode and it's like, well...

Remmy: We have all the characters — Mary and later, Sam — trying to put onto Nick, "You don't have to do this," or "You're going to struggle with this," but we, as the audience, like you said, can't sit with the characters in these moments and with this tone because we know that he's already beyond any saving.

Bea: Yeah. And you know, maybe this is just being picky, saying that I would have liked this moment of Mary's shock to be something that I could connect to, because by the time we get to our final scene with Nick, we have everything gelled together, but it's just in this moment it's 'Oh, what could have been.’ I get that it couldn't have happened because of the way things played out, but I always sit there [thinking], and that was just an element that I felt we had a facet that we just couldn't enjoy, unfortunately, because of past choices.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, but I think it was a good beat for Mary because, again, Mary only knows what she knows and she is shocked that Nick would so readily go along with this demon.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: This demon's command to kill her.

Bea: Yeah, and okay, this demon just killed your family, and because you want to chat with it more you're going to kill me too? It's just, you can see, "Where is the rationale there?" that Mary's trying to puzzle through. So Nick's coming at her and it's by the grace of God that we got Sam there. He fires off a bullet at Nick and it's just enough to shock him away, make that one side of his head ringing, and they come running in.

Remmy: Yep, yep. The cavalry has arrived. Let's ignore that I slurred that word.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: And now we have a full unit here. We have Mary, Dean, Sam, Donna, Nick, and Abraxas, and everyone is here. So Sam has his gun trained on Nick, and Dean rushes to Mary to check to see that she's all right, and he unties her hands. Sam says, "Nick, what the hell are you doing?" and Nick says, "What I have to," and Nick, you absolute turd. He takes his blade and he breaks the devil's trap that is holding Abraxas.

Bea: Yeah! Sam was like, "What's wrong with you? What are you doing?" and then [Nick] is like, "I'm going to continue to make you ask that question."

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah, Abraxas immediately breaks free of his bonds and, no discrimination, he lifts all five of his adversaries in the air and slams them to the ground.

Bea: Yeah, psychic-drop, and then he starts monologuing that killed Nick's family under orders from Lucifer, "You moron, of course it was Lucifer," and Nick has like, the solitary tear, "I don't understand. Why me?"

Remmy: And I don't know how far back to take this, because we said in episode 7 on this podcast, we said that we were, as the audience, left to draw our own conclusions about why Abraxas killed Nick's family, and we came to the conclusion that it was on Lucifer's orders. Now, me, having totally forgot that this episode happened, was that something that we knew on the first watch? Or was that just our subconscious omniscience coming through?

Bea: I feel like that was just the us, as the audience, putting two and two together.

Remmy: Yeah, because it is obvious, right?

Bea: A demon killed your family and then you became Lucifer's vessel? D'oy.

Remmy: Yeah. I am very curious about — I understand that this is the next step in Nick's story. We learned that Abraxas was the demon that killed his family, and to think that a demon killed his family, putting two and two together does lead to it was, you know, part of Lucifer's plan to get Nick to say yes. But in episode 7, again, I think that ending on that Lucifer prayer, it just launched us ten steps forward, that left the audience trying to fill that gap. So we were told to puzzle it out, basically, but now here we're taking eight steps back from where we were.

Bea: It's like, “Forget the conclusions that you came to already. Here, we're going to give you your canonical answer.”

Remmy: Yeah, and we're going to — I don't know. That whole last scene... Like I said, it was a launch forward and now we're backtracking totally, and we are going to now go through all of those steps to the conclusion that we already have reached, because we were basically told that we weren't going to get the answers otherwise.

Bea: Yeah, and he already said that he thought that finding Sarah and Teddy's killer would free his rage, but he just likes killing and he wants to keep doing that. So at the end of that note, I was like, why is he still looking for Abraxas? He just finished saying that the truth didn't matter to him. It was more the killing that he enjoyed. It was all that that I'm just like — it's like you're saying, it's the two steps back.

Remmy: Yeah. So Abraxas says that he was following orders that Lucifer — and Nick says, "Orders from who?" and he says, "Duh." Abraxas says, "Lucifer, who else?"

Bea: "You're not special. You weren't chosen. You were picked out of the phone book."

Remmy: Which I think that's just Abraxas talking in a bit.

Bea: Being a b****.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, being a b****, because we do know something about bloodlines and it does take a special [vessel]. And from season 11 — or season 12, I should say. [laughs] Always one off — from season 12 that Lucifer can't just hop into any body, so it had to have been planned that Lucifer needed Nick. But what Abraxas is saying — and that's why Abraxas had killed his family and primed Nick to say yes to Lucifer — but what Abraxas is saying here, I think, it's throwing into Nick's face what we heard from Nick on that Lucifer prayer. "You chose me. We are connected."

Bea: Yeah, and then here's Abraxas going, "Oh, no, nothing about you was like, 'oh, we want that guy.' It was just genuinely like, 'okay, here is the list of say 30 vessels that we could pick for him. Ehh, let's go with that one. He's got a family we could kill. That'd be easy.'"

Remmy: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So Nick is — I don't even know what Nick is thinking, honestly — but Nick does seem like that hit.

Bea: Yeah, he seems a bit pissed about it.

Remmy: I don't know in what way. I don't know if it hit because his family was killed under Lucifer's orders, or if it hit because Abraxas is saying that he is not in any way special to Lucifer.

Bea: Well, I think it's that one. I think it's that one because of the way the episode 7 went. [laughs] We filmed episode 7, we don't need to talk about it again.

Remmy: [laughs] I know.

Bea: But that's the way that it feels with that context in mind. "What do you mean I'm not special?"

Remmy: But this whole episode he has been back on that family vengeance train, so I just don't know. I just don't know.

Bea: That might be fair but me, as an audience member, with that in mind, I just don't buy it because he previously said killing feels too good and, "I thought I was going for justice, but really I just want to f****** get my boner on about killing people."

Remmy: We've got to stop. We've got to move on. [laughs] Sorry.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah. 20 seconds is over.

Remmy: 20 seconds is over. So, Abraxas.

Bea: Abraxas is monologuing.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: Dean starts his exorcism, and Abraxas tosses him for it. And then Nick is pissed, so he grabs an angel blade and he kills Abraxas with it.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: He gears up for a fight, you know, four versus one; apparently he likes these odds.

Remmy: Uh-huh, that's gonna be good.

Bea: [laughs] Donna is just, "F*** this." Nick's brought a knife? She brings a gun to that knife fight. She shoots him in the leg and he goes over, and Mary punches him for good measure.

Remmy: [smiling] Yes. Mary gets a good punch in. I appreciate that. Clocks him straight in the face. So yeah, it's over, but we next cut to — we're outside. We have Donna and a cuffed Nick in front of Donna's squad car. Sam asks for a moment with Nick.

Bea: Yeah. He just wants to ask why. "What is all this about?"

Remmy: Yeah. He just asks, "Why?" and Nick says, "For my family. You would have done the same thing. If you were in my shoes, you would have done the exact same thing. I needed vengeance. I needed the answers."

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And Sam kind of takes that.

Bea: Yeah, he doesn't deny it, which I found interesting.

Remmy: That's a good point. Yeah, because, you know, maybe that is what the Winchesters would have done. I don't think they would have done anything different. Oh, except for the killing. But... [laughs]

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: So Sam can't take that completely as a, "Okay, fair," because it's not, and what Sam latches onto is he says, "I'm sorry that I couldn't help you. I'm sorry that I didn't know how to help you," and Nick walks us into this, "It's not about you, Sam. You couldn't have helped me. I didn't want to be helped. You couldn't fix me. I was not broken,” or, “I am not broken."

Bea: Yeah. Well, it's a narcissist thing here, and Nick going, "It's not about you. It's about me. Your opinion on this is irrelevant because it was just what I wanted to do."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, because Sam is trying to apologize and Nick doesn't want to accept that.

Bea: And then that makes Sam angry, I think.

Remmy: Yeah, I think it's... [sighs]

Bea: It's realizing the effort was lost.

Remmy: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's it.

Bea: That he had these hopes and it was hard for him, which doesn't make like, "Oh, you know, it was hard for me and ergo f*** you," but It was really challenging for him to have compassion for Nick. He was really pushing himself for this with the hopes that it would be something that some good will come of it for Nick, and then here's Nick saying, "The f*** are you even thinking that you're doing in my life? Like, who are you? This is the way that I want to be and the way I want to be is totally fine."

Remmy: But Sam, still, he says, "I'm not sorry for — I don't feel sorry for you, Nick. I feel sorry for the people that you killed in this little revenge mission of yours. I feel sorry for the people that you killed along the way. You are going to be haunted by these faces for the rest of your life." And, you know what? What I was going to say is, "And that's why I feel sorry for you." But no. No. Sam says, "And that's what you deserve."

Bea: Yeah, he's worked himself into a high emotion here, and he just is like, "No. You, Nick? You can burn."

Remmy: Yep. Yeah, and with that, Sam's done. He steps away.

Bea: He leaves Nick to Donna. [laughs] "Watch your head now."

Remmy: Oh my gosh, again, Donna is just so quintessentially Donna every time and it's perfect.

Bea: Yeah, bless her.

Remmy: Uh-huh, and we shift the focus to Mary and Dean having an aside to this Sam and Nick conversation, where Mary comes to Dean and she says, "I saw the shed. I saw what you've been building, and I know what you're planning."

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And Dean doesn't even have anything to say to that.

Bea: No, this is the most terse, or the most firm that I've ever seen her speak to him. She's very like, "You talk to Sam or we are calling a family meeting," and it's like, "Yes, Mom. Sorry, Mom." [laughs]

Remmy: Uh-huh. She says, "I know what you're thinking and we are going to talk about it as a family — you, me, and Sam. So if you don't tell him then I will," and yeah, and like I said, I don't think Dean says a single word this... [laughs]

Bea: No, he just — I wouldn't say cowered, but he definitely resigns himself. "Oh s***. This is something I have to do."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: "I'm boned."

Remmy: And back in the morning, it's now day time, and Dean has Sam with him in the barn and they are standing before the Ma’lak Box.

Bea: This coffin.

Remmy: Right at the start, Dean calls it the Ma'lak box, and it's a f****** coffin. We, as the viewer, see it for the first f****** time. And I don't — I don't know. I don't know what to think yet, but we're going straight into what this f****** thing is.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah. It's never good when your character's like, "Hi, I built a coffin with sigils on it," and Dean's describing it. He's like, "Yeah, nothing gets out. We just got to secure and ward it and it'll hold even an archangel — especially an archangel."

Remmy: Right, and Sam says, "Yeah, Dean, I know what it is. I've read about them, but one has never been made."

Bea: Yeah, they're supposed to be impossible to build.

Remmy: Right, and Dean says, "Well," and he gives a little proud pat, and at this point I am spiraling because his determination, with that f****** song playing when he was building it.

Bea: F*** yeah.

Remmy: He was so — I don't know. There was such a drive to him in that scene.

Bea "You need not wonder why/There's no time left for you." Songmeanings.net.

Remmy: [laughs] A drive to him in that scene and I'm like, he's building his own coffin.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And I can't even imagine. We've seen the Winchesters throw themselves into the pit before, and I can't even count how many times we've seen Dean and his suicidal tendencies, but this is Dean's version of throwing himself into the Cage, that we saw Sam do in season 5. This isn't just Dean throwing away his life because he doesn't see the value in his life. He is doing it to save the world.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: As he sees it.

Bea: Yes. And Sam is, "So your idea is basically to just bury yourself alive with Michael?"

Remmy: Uh-huh.

Bea: And Dean goes, "No, I see your burial. I'm gonna raise you one. I want to be dipped in the f****** ocean."

Remmy: Yeah, yeah.

Bea: "Splash."

Remmy: And Sam is just looking to Dean like... [sighs] Because if we were to bury Dean, Sam would know where he is and he would keep trying to find the solution. If he found the solution then — to bury Dean is a 'just for now' [fix].

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And Dean says, "No, it's all or nothing. Burying me isn't good enough. We are going to — I was going to pay to get dropped into the Pacific and never to be seen again. You would never find me." [Sam] says, following from that, "We just need to wait it out until we find the solution." Dean says, "You tried. Jack tried. Mom tried. Cas tried, and you tried, and I love you for trying." We're revisiting what he said before when he first talked to Sam. He says...

Bea: "I appreciate it. I love you for it. But none of it will work."

Remmy: Oh my God, and I'm just like, oh my God. And Sam, he says, "What?"

Bea: Yeah, "We don't know that. How are you so sure about this?" and so this is when Dean breaks down that Billie told him it's the only way and gave him the recipe, and it's fate. Sam still sitting there like, "The f*** are you talking about? Since when do you believe in fate?" And Dean's little, "Since now," I'm like, God damn you guys!

Remmy: So Sam, after that didn't pan out, where he doesn't get any wiggle room from Dean in the whole Billie thing, and this is not the only way — there's always another way — and [Dean] shuts that down. "There is no other way. Death herself told me so." Sam appeals to Dean more on an emotional level. He says, "So what is this? You coming out here, visiting with Donna? Visiting Mom? Was that your sick secret farewell tour? You were going to leave; you're going to disappear, and you just weren't even going to tell me?" He says, "Me. You weren't going to tell me. Do you have any idea?"

Bea: Yeah, "You were going to leave me with that being my last moment [with you]. Were you going to leave a phone call before you dipped in the ocean, and be like, ‘Okay. Love you. Bye,’ or was that going to be genuinely it? You leave me wondering, ‘Where did he go after Mary's place what happened? What did he do?’ I couldn't believe that you thought that that was an acceptable way to go out."

Remmy: Yeah, and that little appeal from Sam does get more of a response than anything so far.

Bea: Yeah. Well, because Dean knows he's right.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: It's a s***ty move. When we were talking about being a witness to that first scene, when they're interacting and they don't really have their footing, now you can add this extra layer to it. Dean probably knew it was a dick move, but he knew that it was what he had to do because of what he says right now. He can't be around Sam because the second that Sam catches whiff of this idea, he's going to get talked out of it. But Dean has had enough moments where he felt Michael almost getting out; he feels how close he is to the edge, and I really feel that he doubts himself and his ability to hold Michael.

Remmy: We had him at the end of the last episode standing in front of the mirror and saying, trying to shore himself up, he says, "It's just you. It's all you. It's just you," but it's not enough.

Bea: Yeah. When Dean doubts himself, that's when he tends to try and fall back on something else to support him. When you look into season 5 and he was going to say yes to Michael, he had that doubt in himself, and he just thought, "Oh, no, I gotta do this," and the Ma'lak to me is the same thing. He was trying to reassure himself that he can contain Michael and then Billie shows up and is like, “LOL nope. Here's why," and then he's like, "Well, f*** it," so he goes to the next best thing. He tries to find the thing that he can throw himself into as a solution to the doubt that he has.

Remmy: Yeah, and he says this is it.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: He says to Sam, "I couldn't give you a proper goodbye because I knew that you were the only one who could talk me out of this, and I will not be talked out of it. I can't."

Bea: Yeah. He has spent enough time just building himself to the point where he's stonewalled against what Sam might say about this, and he's drawing the line before Sam can even broach it.

Remmy: And bros. Oh my God, bros. I cry.

Bea: [sighs] Sam is very upset.

Remmy: Yeah, and Dean says, "I have to do this and no, I won't be talked out of it. I have to do this, and I think, Sam, that you know why." He doesn't say this, but this is what I feel is implied. He is appealing to Sam to say, "I have to do this and you have to accept that I have to do this, and I think that on some level you do have to accept that this is my only choice." And Dean says, "I could do it alone or I can do it with you."

Bea: Yeah, he's doing this with or without Sam. But the implication is that Dean would rather not do this alone.

Remmy: So oh oop, there goes my heart in pieces on the floor.

Bea: Yeah. "Splash."

Remmy: We end with a close-up on Sam and he says, "All right." And cut to black!

Bea: Yeah. F***. He's just processing and then quietly gives in. He relinquishes to Dean's wishes and he doesn't look at all happy about it.

Remmy: Augh. "All right? All right?" Not all right! What are you doing? [scoffs]

Bea: M*********er.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. That was me, yelling at my TV screen, after we cut to black there. I do appreciate that we cut to black basically on Sam's exhale.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: We talked about the rising tension in this episode. We talked about how so much of this episode has been kept in shadows, only to be revealed in these last couple of minutes of the episode, and we end very abruptly but meaningfully timed on Sam's almost exhale of resignation.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: After all that building tension and uncertainty and mystery.

Bea: Yeah, and it is not even like he is settled in himself with this choice. It's just genuinely like, "Fine." And then we are left with the question of what carries after that. What's the implication of him agreeing?

Remmy: So... [laughs] So that was the episode. Coming off of this episode, I was thinking, what is my takeaway here? What is — what's my final takeaway? Because this episode felt pretty — I don't know if 'transitive' is the right word, but...

Bea: It was a liminal space for the characters, yeah.

Remmy: Yeah, not transitive. Transitional.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Transitive, that's a mathematical property of — anyways. No, it felt very transitional and I was thinking, what do I take away from this episode? Because sitting here, even knowing what's coming for the rest of the season — I know, sitting here on my first watch and sitting here now — I'm just one big what the f*** with the Ma'lak box. One big — because this is a curveball.

Bea: Oh, yeah.

Remmy: We have been left to wonder what was in that little black book that Death — Billie — gave Dean, and then this is it? I don't know. I don't know. The big Ma'lak box reveal in the last couple of minutes, I think this is probably my takeaway, except it's hard to articulate as a takeaway because I was one big ‘what the f***’. We just know that this isn't going to — we know that Dean is not going to put himself in the box and throw himself into the Atlantic. So what is this?

Bea: Oh, but I like imagining it.

Remmy: Oh, no. [laughs]

Bea: I like imagining it. I had a coda ready for that and then I just... stamina, man. [laughs]

Remmy: Oh my God, no, no. No, I could not imagine a damn thing. No.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: I didn't know what to think about it because — I don't know. This is why [laughs] this is why I'm like...

Bea: It just left you on such uneven footing, that [in this] episode we carried through being left in the shadows, and then you're essentially saying — it sounds to me like you're in the same position as Sam. You've been sideswiped by this plan and it's like, well, how can Dean possibly believe that this is what they're going through with? And for Sam to even agree, how can you think that that's actually going to be the long-term thing? So we're sitting in the space of well, if we try to have faith in our characters, we're going down one path, but if we think about this rationally, we're going down another one. We just feel like we're at odds; we're at the fork in the road going, well, where are they going next?

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. The whole Ma'lak box thing — sorry if I sound far away, I'm rocking in my seat; I've got both legs braced against the wall, freaking — anyways. [laughs]

Bea: Comfort zone.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, I've contorted myself into an English pretzel. I — the whole Ma’lak box thing. I have a lot of — I don't know. I get really into it emotionally when we are confronted with Dean and his suicidal tendencies. I don't know. I'm at a point in the series where it's so commonplace in Dean's character, in his stories, and ignored...

Bea: Yeah, it stepped over the fact that he has such little value in his life, or the life that he wants to lead.

Remmy: I feel that in a lot of Dean's stories, it's so inherent in his character that this is how Dean would react: he would just throw himself away. We see it a lot, but we never...

Bea: Explore it.

Remmy: Explore it, or give it the gravity it deserves.

Bea: Yeah, there's not really a character that's stepping in and going whoa, why are you okay with going through that?

Remmy: It just comes to the writers. We make jokes about how we can't put Dean and Cas in the same room because then the characters write their own story, and there's no logical progression to a conversation between Dean and Cas that doesn't end somewhere uncomfortably hunter husbands for the writers.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: You can't put them in the same room to talk, otherwise they're going to end up kissing, because that's how the story has been built. But on the same kind of thing, it's just so... What would Dean do? He would kill himself. I just think it happens a lot and I think it happens because it's just built into Dean's character at this point. And me, for the Ma'lak box here, sitting here with Dean going to kill himself again...

Bea: Well, it's worse than that. That's the thing though. He's like, "It's a death sentence, but it is an undeath." With an archangel in his head that he knows is going to get out, that means he's going to get possessed by Michael. Michael's not going to die of old age or drowning under the ocean. He is just going to be there and Dean is going to be trapped in there, and it's going to be forever and ever. I totally get what you're meaning of he does have suicide attempts. Like we saw in last f****** season with "Advanced [Thanatology]" that he thought nothing of stopping his heart to go on this seemingly innocuous case.

Remmy: We saw in this season, and I'm trying to remember what it was, but oh my God. I know I went on this tangent with Dean but I can't — oh, oh! Sorry, with Kaia, where he says, "Just kill me," throwing all his chips in. "If you don't give me the spear then just kill me now," and we discussed it and we kind of settled on that gamble was one part a gamble, like, "Okay, this might work out," but also one part an "I don't care if it works."

Bea: "If it doesn't work out then whatever. I'm going to die anyway."

Remmy: And I said just two episodes ago with "The Spear", here's Dean back on his bulls***. Ending this episode, honestly? Not to get too salty, but here's my salt round. Here's Dean again back on his bulls***, and as a viewer, I'm like, I know he's not going to throw himself into the ocean. I know that's not where the story is going to go. So why are we doing it? I don't know it. I don't see the drama in it. I'm just tired.

Bea: Okay.

Remmy: I'm — using Dean's lack of... Okay, I'll stop. I'll stop.

Bea: [laughs] You have like a 15-minute closing thought.

Remmy: Yeah. Sorry.

Bea: No, no, no. I like that you're very passionate about it, because I have only seen half the seasons. So I've maybe only seen half the times where Dean particularly belittles his value, and so for me, you're asking what's the point of this Ma'lak box if he's not going to go through with it? I think the point is that the characters currently feel like they are cornered and that this is the only path, and then the game is more about how do they get off that path? Or if they choose to leave that path, what are the consequences? Here, we have Death and fate and whatever saying, "If you do not do this one thing, the world ends."

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: So, to me, that's where it is [rather] than, "Well, is he going to get in the box?" No, he's not, but we've been told the stakes of him not getting in, and so how are we going to get around that?

Remmy: At the risk of sounding too salty about the writers' choices, I think that the fact that we have set this up at all is just lazy, because it doesn't matter and I know it doesn't matter. So why did we set this up when it is going to be worked around in some way?

Bea: Well, because it's not just the Ma'lak box; it's the Chekhov's box, is the thing. We've introduced this item that is essentially going to play the role of Chekhov's gun for the rest of the season. When is it going to go off? When is this Ma'lak box going to get used? Because they didn't just spend an episode building our questions around, "What is Dean doing?" to create something and then toss it away the next episode. It is now an element in play in the plot and so ‘how is it going to play out?’ becomes a question. It's like you're saying: ‘we know Dean's not climbing into it, so what is this box doing here?’ becomes the question, rather than, ‘what is this box doing here?’

Remmy: [laughs] That is a lot more credit than I chose to give it.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: A good thing. That's definitely a good thing. I just... I didn't like this episode when I saw it the first time, or I didn't — maybe saying I didn't like this episode...

Bea: You were neutral to it?

Remmy: Yeah. I was just mad at the ending note of it and it kind of soured any enjoyment I got from the rest of the episode. I do think it was a very well done episode, but — especially watching it for the first time — I was just like, "This is bulls*** and I'm bored." [laughs]

Bea: Oh, see, I ended on this note and I was so excited.

Remmy: Yeah? Yeah?

Bea: I found it very — like I said, that's where I was sitting with it. Oh my God, what are they gonna do with it?

Remmy: Yeah. No. I was just like that — I was tired. [laughs]

Bea: Where I got salty was at the start of the next episode where they basically — because the teaser had Dean underwater and I was like, "Oh my God, that's not what I expected."

Remmy: Oh yeah! Oh, yeah.

Bea: And then oh, no, we wash that off at the f****** start of the episode.

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: So yeah.

Remmy: So. So yeah, that's, I guess, the best I can do for a takeaway. [laughs] I don't know how I'm gonna feel about this whole Ma'lak box thing going forward, but that's my takeaway.

Bea: Okay. Yeah, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

Remmy: [laughs] What about you? How about you? Please bring me up from...

Bea: [laughs] Okay. Takeaway number 100 out of 100, but Mary must be watching Queer Eye because she was doing a little French tuck with her shirt.

Remmy: Oh my God. [laughs]

Bea: I noticed that when she went into the outbuilding and was investigating Dean's work. Just like, "Aww, we're getting a little insight to the character," and another one being that Mary and Donna were exchanging emails and setting up the meeting here. So I guess the long and short of my takeaway would be just [that] we're really feeling the interconnectivity of these characters, and we're feeling the warmth and familiarity that Sam and Dean and Mary have in extension to what we would consider our side characters. Even Mary and grocer Joe, who is in two scenes.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: We know that she has a rapport with him. And so it's these type of elements that really give us the characters as people and not just as plot devices or plot moments. So the long and short of my takeaway — my takeaway number 100 will feed into my takeaway number 1 — which is that this episode really gave us a lot of insight into the family dynamics. We got to see how Mary deals with things under pressure in comparison to her sons, and just the way that they have compassion and are navigating giving each other space, and that they had poor footing; that they had a stalemate between Sam and Dean and the Impala. We're seeing the family dynamics in really subtle and in multiple ways, all in this short window. To me, that was really rewarding. To even ignore what the plot is in the moment and just see the way that they're interacting with each other, I was like, A+.

Remmy: Yeah. I mean, that's a good point. We have Dean and Mary, and we have Dean and Sam in the beginning, and then when Sam shows up unexpectedly we have Dean kind of lashing out at Sam, but then bringing back in to plead with him to understand his plan with the Ma’lak box, and to be with him in this. Dean and Mary but also Sam and Mary, and how they're communicating around this Dean issue. And if we want to even expand further out, Dean — well, Sam — and his hunter newsletter, you know.

Bea: And Dean — okay, and Donna's protectiveness of Mary. These are not character dynamics that really get any time spent on them, per se, but there was a huge range of emotions that the characters all had to play through with each other. I feel like it was just executed deftly, and it really heightened these characters has three-dimensional figures.

Remmy: Yeah. We got a lot this episode, and it was really well written as putting the characters forth as people and not just plot devices moving the scenes forward.

Bea: Yeah, so it's maybe a hard thing to pin down but it is just a really subtle element that they executed very well, and so that's my takeaway.

Remmy: Yeah. I griped on the ending here, but thank you for bringing me back to why this was a great episode and why we love the Winchesters and their people. Even Dean's little story about John and each of their reactions to it, Dean and Mary's reactions to that story. But yeah.

Bea: Mary's whiskey, crossword puzzles, and pumpkins, just those little things. There's so many of these little moments that you don't really stop to appreciate but when you do stop and look at them, you go, oh, that was an interesting insight that I wasn't expecting.

Remmy: Yes. Good. Agreed. Absolutely. Did you have a 2 through 99 on your 1 through 100, or...?

Bea: It would probably be a lot of face journey s***.

Remmy: [laughs] A lot of face journey s***. Okay, this episode — by all the actors, from Mark P to Jensen to Samantha —

Bea: To Briana!

Remmy: Hey Briana.

Bea: Joe the grocer, Jeff/Abraxas. Everyone was doing awesome.

Remmy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: I don't want to sell this episode short because it was a good one, even though, like you say, it's transitional.

Remmy: Nothing big happened, really, except for the big reveal in the last 2 minutes. It's what we're supposed to be talking about coming away from it, but we had so much insight on our characters and it's just always fun and good to see so yeah. Yeah, that was season 14, episode 11: "Damaged Goods" and damaged they are. But... [laughs]

Bea: Yeah, damage we are. [laughs]

Remmy: Who doesn't have their problems. And next week we are going to be talking about episode 12: "Prophet and Loss".

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: I might have skipped over our little social media plug there, so take us away, Bea.

Bea: That's fine. I mean, at this point you guys should be pretty practiced hearing us, but we're on Tumblr. We're on Twitter. We have a website and we have a Gmail, so reach out to us at any of those.

Remmy: Yeah, guys, come and subscribe. Comment. Send us an ask or anything at all. We love to hear from you. And as I said next week, we're going to talk about season 14, episode 12: "Prophet and Loss" so we will see you guys there.

Bea: Yeah, sounds good.

Remmy: Thanks for listening.

Bea: Thank you. Bye.

Remmy: Bye.

[post-outro stinger]

Remmy: And that was never a — why are there dogs?

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: [dog collars rattling] Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, guys. [rattling increases] Hey, hey. Hey.

Bea: Puppers!

Remmy: [growing more distant] No, no, no, no, no, no. Not the laptop, not the laptop, oh my God. Oh my God.

Bea: [laughs]