11.11 Into the Mystic

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SPN-1111.jpg
Title Into the Mystic
Episode # Season 11, Episode 11
First aired January 27, 2016
Directed by John Badham
Written by Robbie Thompson
On IMDB Into the Mystic
Outline Sam and Dean go on the hunt for a banshee that has been causing the residents of a retirement home to kill themselves.
Monster Banshee
Timeline Few days after 11.10 The Devil in the Details
Location(s) County Cork, Ireland (1985/6)
Lebanon, Kansas
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Synopsis

County Cork, Ireland - 30 years ago (1985/6)
Thirty years ago in Ireland, a father is playing a song to his daughter, when his wife comes home and he takes her for a dance. The husband suddenly hears a screeching sound that turns him mad and he starts bashing his head against a wall as a spirit appears. His wife works fast to create a spell that can banish the spirit, but it costs her life to do so, leaving their daughter an orphan.

Present day (2016)
In present time, Sam is tossing and turning in his bed with Lucifer’s voice filling his head, reminding him that he didn’t try to look for Dean when the older brother was dragged to Purgatory. Sam decides to get up and is working on some of their weapons when Dean walks in. Still in his dead man’s robe, Dean brings news of a case at a retirement home near the Bunker, where a resident was found with his head bashed and no signs of entry from the outside. Sam hesitates because they haven’t heard anything from the Darkness or Castiel since they got back from Hell. Dean assures his brother that there were no weird signs from Amara, and Cas is fine, as he always is.

Meanwhile, Lucifer—who is now using Castiel as a vessel—is enjoying life free from the Cage, feeding birds at a pond and taking a walk in the park, until an angel spots him. Lucifer lures the angel deeper into the forest and confronts him. The angel doesn’t believe that Lucifer will destroy the Darkness after the failed attempt from the angels. As the angel attempts to attack Lucifer, Lucifer kills him with a snap of his fingers.

Back in Kansas, Dean and Sam arrives at Oak Park Retirement Home for their case. Dean questions the manager while Sam takes a look at the victim’s room. The manager informs Dean that the tenant was shouting for something to get out of his head, and his head was smashed on the wall. The boys later find out that there was a man who sued the victim, yet the case never got to the court. Assuming that this man might've held a grudge towards their victim, Sam and Dean visit where he was buried to give his remains a salt and burn, not knowing that, back in the retirement home, the manager has become another victim.

The next day, Sam and Dean question a tenant, Mildred Baker, who witnessed the manager’s death. She tells them about the spirit woman that she saw. While Dean is comforting the lady tenant, Sam questions one of the housekeeping staff, Marlene, who turns out to be deaf. After gaining no information from her, Sam returns to Dean and talks about their next plan, which Marlene finds out from reading their lips.

After some research, Sam and Dean figure out that they are dealing with a banshee—the malevolent kind, who prey on the victim’s brain and tend to search for vulnerable people. The only way to defeat them is using a gold blade; Dean decides to go back to the Bunker to grab some, while Sam tries to figure which vulnerable person will be next.

Inside the Bunker, Dean hears noises from one of the rooms. It turns out to be Castiel, ransacking the archives, saying that he’s looking for a spell that can lure out Amara. When Castiel tells Dean that he had Amara in his sights and wasn't able to kill her, Dean returns the favor by telling Castiel that he had two opportunities to kill her, but both times he failed. Castiel then asks Dean to tell him the story.

Meanwhile at the retirement home, Sam visits Mildred because he suspects that she will be next due to a health condition. He tells her that both he and Dean are hunters and tells her about the banshee. Sam learns from Mildred that there is no one on the housekeeping staff who is deaf. Sam soon follows the deaf girl to the laundry room, where he sees a weird sigil. Before he can investigate further, he gets trapped between the two sigils, and the girl is about to kill him with a golden blade. Sam then tells her that he and Dean are hunters, and they are hunting the same thing. After the girl releases Sam, she tells him her real name—Eileen Leahy—revealing her parents were killed by the banshee thirty years ago in Ireland when she was an infant, leaving her deaf. She was raised and trained by a hunter, Lillian O'Grady, until she died of cancer. Eileen also reveals that her grandfather was a Man of Letters, like the Winchester boys.

Back in the Bunker, Castiel suggests that the connection between Amara and Dean might not only be because of the Mark of Cain, but also an attraction that Dean is scared of facing. Castiel tells Dean that they will find a way to stop the Darkness. The talk is interrupted by a phonecall from Sam that fills Dean in with their current status; the boys decide to use Mildred as bait. After hanging up with Sam, Dean tells Castiel that they should keep the talk between them, and Castiel assures Dean that the next time Dean meets Amara, he won’t be alone. What Dean doesn’t see is the mischievous smile on Castiel’s face after he leaves.

When Dean arrives, and starts giving out the golden blades, Mildred quickly pulls him aside to give him a small lesson on living a long and happy life. That’s when Dean hears the banshee’s screech. The spirit is attacking the others, while Dean starts to bash his head against a wall. Eileen gestures to Mildred to use the sigil to trap the banshee, allowing Eileen to finish it off with her golden blade.

Before the boys leave, Mildred tells Dean that she can tell he's pining for someone else and to not worry about it. When they’re back in the Bunker, Dean tells Sam that Cas looked a little bit weird, although Sam thinks that Cas always seems a little bit off. They agree that they need to keep an eye on the angel. While they’re having their beers, Sam apologizes to Dean for not looking for him when he was in Purgatory. Dean shakes it off, saying that the important thing is that they’re together now. Right before he goes to bed, Sam asks Dean why the banshee went for him, if it only goes after the vulnerable. Dean lightly answers that the banshee saw his golden blade and decided to attack him instead of Mildred. Sam shrugs and accepts this explanation, but later that night Dean is unable to sleep, left sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, obviously troubled by his thoughts.

Characters

Definitions

Music

  • "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" by The Shirelles
(playing on the record player as Padraic and Maura dance)
  • "Wonderful! Wonderful!" by Johnny Mathis
(playing as Dean and Sam pull in at the Oak Park retirement home)
  • "Prison Grove" by Warren Zevon
(plays over the closing montage)

Quotes

Sam: Seriously? This place is an old folks home?

Dean: Looks awesome. Maybe we oughta make a reservation.

Sam: Ha. We should be lucky to live long enough.
Sam: Turns out Harold was stealing the other resident's Viagra.
Dean: I know. A real dick move, huh?
Dean: You okay?
Sam: No, I'm not actually, not at all. Being so close to Lucifer, again... Brought stuff up, stuff I thought I forgot about.
Dean: I tried to kill her.

Castiel/Lucifer: The two of you are connected somehow by the Mark.
Dean: Yeah no, it's more than that.
Castiel/Lucifer: Attraction? Dean.

Dean: I know. I know, okay? Whatever it is -- attraction, connection. I gotta tell you man, I don't know if I can stop it. I don't know that I can resist it.
Mildred: I got dibs on the other guy. You can have the tall one. I'm not much of a mountain climber anymore.
Eileen: You sure you don't want both?
Sam: Eileen, you okay?

Eileen: I'm nervous. If this really is the banshee I've been looking for-

Sam: Eileen, in my experience, revenge is not all it's cracked up to be. Killing this banshee is not gonna bring your parents back.
Sam: I was studying law at Stanford when my brother came and got me so we could get our revenge.

Eileen: You've been hunting together ever since?

Sam: Yeah, I wouldn't do this without my brother. He's had my back every step of the way, even when I let him down.
Mildred: You wanna know the secret to living a long and happy life?

Dean: Actually, I do.

Mildred: Follow your heart. You do that, all the rest just figures itself out. I did that, I followed my heart. Traveled the world, made people smile, forget about their problems for a while. And then my heart said, 'well, you're done.' I had my fill and retired and I love it.
Dean: Your hand is still on my knee.

Mildred: I could move it up.

Dean: Okay. I'm gonna-
Sam: Dean. When I was with Lucifer, he um, showed me things. It was like a highlight reel of my biggest failures.

Dean: Yeah, he was messing with you. That's what he does.
Sam: Give me a sec. I should have looked for you. When you were in Purgatory, I should have turned over every stone, but I didn't, I stopped. And I've never forgiven myself for it.
Dean: Well, I have. Hey, that's in the past, man. What's done is done. All that matters now, all that's ever mattered is that we're together, so shut up and drink your beer. You gonna be able to sleep tonight?
Sam: Yeah, yeah. I think so. How about you?
Dean: I still got some ringing going on in my head, but nothing some good music couldn't wash out.
Sam: You know, I still can't figure it out. I mean, banshees go after the vulnerable, right? So, why'd it go after you?
Dean: You're overthinking it. It was going after Mildred, it saw my gold blade and acted out of self-defense. Simple.
Sam: Yeah, you're probably right.
Dean: I'm always right.

Sam: Yeah, yeah. Night.

Trivia & References

"Into the Mystic" is a reference to the song of the same name by Van Morrison.
Maura: It's good to see you smiling, mo chuisle.
"Mo chuisle" is Irish for "my pulse."
As Lucifer is walking down the forest trail with an angel following behind, he is whistling "Shall We Gather at the River?", a traditional Christian hymn which references angels and souls meeting happily in Heaven.
Lucifer: I'm not looking for a fight. In fact, I am your only hope at beating the Darkness. I heard you kids had your big shot at the title and missed it. You don't need to be afraid, brother, I am out of that awful, awful Cage. And I'm here to save you all—Lucifer ex machina.
Refers to deus ex machina, a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.
Dean: So, no retirement, huh?

Sam: Hey, you're the one who's always wanted to go out 'blaze of glory' style, preferably while the Bon Jovi song is playing.
Dean: I am a candle in the wind.

"I'm going down in a blaze of glory" is a line from Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" that is repeated throughout the song. "A candle in the wind" is a line from the first verse. The lyrical "I" in the song compares him/herself to Cain at one point and, in general, the song's lyrics fit Dean pretty well.
Dean and Sam use the aliases Agents Osbourne and Butler, a reference to Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath.
Dean: Fingers crossed it's zombies so we can get our "Walking Dead" on.
The Walking Dead is a popular American TV series, set in a post-apocalyptic world.
Dean: I don't like using Mildred as bait.

Sam: You worried about her? Does this mean she has a shot?
Dean: I always did have a thing for Blanche on "The Golden Girls."
Sam: Seriously?
Dean: Hey don't judge what you don't understand, Sammy.
Sam: No, I'm not judging. I've just always had a thing for Sophia.
Dean: I could see that.

The Golden Girls was an American sitcom that aired from 1985 to 1992. It features four elderly ladies: Dorothy, Rose, Blanche (whom Dean 'had a thing for'), and Sophia (who is Dorothy's mother and whom Sam apparently 'had a thing for').
Dean: Tell me something. What'd you do before you retired?

Mildred: I was in a Patsy Cline tribute band.

Patsy Cline, real name Virginia Patterson Hensley, was an American country and pop singer of the late '50s and early '60s.

Minutiae

Atlin Mitchell, who played the Banshee, has previously worked as a stunt performer on Supernatural.
Jonathan Potts, who played Arthur Moore, previously played Mr. Fremont in 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked.
Dee Wallace, who played Mildred Baker, is a legendary genre actress who starred in the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and the 1983 adaptation of Stephen King's Cujo which was produced by Robert Singer.
According to a tweet by writer Robbie Thompson, Dean stealing the Viagra was unscripted, and was ad-libbed by Jensen Ackles.
When Sam first meets Eileen, he uses the sign for "fuck" instead of "thank you". This was something Shoshannah Stern and Jared came up with together.source
The illustration of a banshee seen on Sam's tablet is an illustration of the 'Bunworth banshee' from a book by Thomas Crofton Croker entitled Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.
The wooden prop of Dean's Amulet from the Supernatural: The Musical production in 10.05 Fan Fiction can be seen in Sam's memory box.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

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