14.08 Byzantium

Title	Byzantium
Episode #	Season 14, Episode 8
First aired	December 6, 2018
Directed by	Eduardo Sanchez
Written by	Meredith Glynn
On IMDB	Byzantium
Outline	Desperate to save Jack, Sam calls Lily Sunder, who has a solution which involves a dangerous trip to Heaven for Castiel, who runs into an old adversary.
Monster	Cosmic Entity
Timeline	Immediately following 14.07 Unhuman Nature
Location(s)	Lebanon, Kansas Heaven
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Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Castiel
• Jack Kline
• Naomi
• Kelly Kline
• Dumah
• Lily Sunder
• Cosmic Entity
• Anubis

Definitions

• Alcohol
• Angel Blade
• Angel Radio
• Deals and Pacts
• Deities
• Enochian
• Heaven
• Hugs
• Impala
• Men of Letters Bunker
• Prayer
• Resurrection
• Soul
• Soullessness
• Spells
• Tablets
• Table of Death

Music

• "Please Call Home" by The Allman Brothers Band

(playing as Sam, Dean and Castiel drink to Jack's memory)

Quotes

Jack: Please don't be sad. Maybe -- Maybe this is how things are supposed to be.
Dean: Don't give me that 'meant to be' crap. This isn't part of some damn plan.

Dean: Hey, Mom, it's me. Sorry to lay this on your voicemail, but, uh it's Jack. He -- He got sick, um, and he, uh -- h-he died this morning. I would have called you sooner, but, um, it -- it happened so fast. And we thought we could fix it, you know like always. Anyway, Mom, I'm sorry. I know how much he meant to you and, uh, to all of us. Anyway, to tell you the truth, it would really be nice to hear your voice. If you could, uh, just call us back.

Dean: Tell me you didn't make a deal.

Sam: A -- A -- A deal? What? No. I -- I was trying to build a pyre. I couldn't -- I-I couldn't even do that for him. I should've done more.
Dean: Sam.
Sam: I should have tried harder. You know, I mean, everything we got -- the spells, the lore -- what good is any of it if we couldn't even save him? At least you were there for him.

Dean: At least you were there for him.

Dean: Right. But I don't like rollin' the dice on the word of a psycho ex-angel killer.

Sam: I don't love it, either, but taking risks, making crappy deals -- that's what we do.
Dean: Yeah, and they usually bite us in the ass.
Sam: So, what do you want to do about it? Leave Jack in the morgue? Burn him?
Dean: I didn't say that.
Sam: Because, for me, not doing this -- that -- that would be like letting him die all over again.

Dean: I want Jack back, too, okay? I do. I just don't trust Lily.

Dean: You know, maybe we got off to a bad start. Um, guess I should be thanking you.

Lily: Apology accepted.
Dean: Except something's been bothering me. Uh, you know, if this magic of yours is so great why'd you stop using it? You're letting yourself get old. You're letting yourself die. Why? Why risk going to Hell if you don't have to? There's something you're not tellin' us.

Lily: When Ishim took my daughter, I swore I'd kill him, even if it meant burning my entire soul. But it didn't. I have a sliver, a whisper of my soul left. May -- my daughter, my little girl -- is in Heaven. And if there is still a piece of my soul. Now do you understand?

Anubis: Mm. The brothers Winchester. I must say, your files have come across my desk many times.

Sam: We never met? I mean, we've died.
Dean: Yeah. A lot.
Anubis: I'm more of a 'back of the house' kind of guy. Death and her subordinates get all the face time. I get stuck with the paperwork.

Dean: Pushin' pencils, damning souls. Tough work.

Castiel: Take me in his stead. Take me.

Cosmic Entity: You?
Castiel: I'm the one you want. I'm the one who woke you up.
Cosmic Entity: You? But you're already mine.
Castiel: Not for years, eons maybe. But if you'll agree, I will go now, and I will go willingly.

Cosmic Entity: Deal. Oh, but not now. No, no, no, no, no. No, you see, I-I meant what I said. I-I want you to suffer. I want you to go back to -- to your normal life and -- and then forget about this and forget about me. And -- And then, when you finally give yourself permission to be happy and let the sun shine on your face, that's when I'll come. That's when I'll come to drag you to nothing.

Jack: Why? Why did you do that?
Castiel: Because I made a promise. Because I love you, Jack. And Sam and Dean -- they love you. And they are fighting for you at this very minute.

Jack: We didn't get enough time.
Kelly: Shh. It's okay. Go. Have a great life. I'll be waiting. I love you so much.

Jack: Is, uh, something wrong? No.

Sam: No, not at all.
Dean: Just damn glad to have you back. Yeah. And we know where Michael is. Not quite sure how you pulled that one off.
Castiel: Well, we, uh -- we still don't know where Dark Kaia is or the spear.
Sam: Yeah, but we will. We'll figure it out. We'll find her. I mean, we found her before.

Dean: That's right. And then Michael -- and that son of a bitch is gonna pay. Come on.

Trivia & References

According to writer Meredith Glynn "Byzantium" is a reference to a William Butler Yeats poem which could be "Sailing to Byzantium" or the later poem "Byzantium."

Jack: Sam what happens next for someone like me?

Sam: I don't know.
Jack: Then it's gonna be an adventure.

"To die will be an awfully big adventure” is a line said by Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, a character created by Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie in 1902.

Naomi: Tell me -- what choice do we have? If we don't meet its demands, Heaven will fall. 46,750,000,000 human souls will be cast in the wind. What's one Nephilim boy against all that? You know I'm right, Castiel. This is what we have to do.

The number 46,750,000,000 comes from The Republican Vol. I by Richard Carlile, published in 1819. The book theorizes that 46,750,000,000 is the number of damned heathen souls.

Minutiae

Jack's personal Heaven appears to be the road trip to Dodge City in 13.06 Tombstone.

At their wake for Jack, Sam, Dean, and Castiel eat nougat -- Jack's favorite candy.

Dean comments that Kevin translated the angel tablet into a cuneiform-like language that only a prophet could read. This is a reference to 9.06 Heaven Can't Wait, when Kevin translated part of the tablet into proto-elamite cuneiform.

Castiel: Anubis. Guardian of the Dead. The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you die, Anubis would weigh your heart on his scale against justice's feather.

Sam: Yeah, the -- the weighing of the heart ceremony, right, but that wasn't Anubis. That was Osiris. We met him.
Dean: Major dick.
Castiel: Osiris is Anubis's father, and Heaven passed over him when they enlisted his son.

We learn that Anubis, like Atropos and her sisters, was brought in to work with Heaven despite being a "pagan god." Sam also mentions his and Dean's encounter with Osiris from 7.04 Defending Your Life. While Osiris determined a person's fate based on how much guilt they felt, his son Anubis weighs up the good and bad deeds a person has done.

This episode presents Anubis in the form of an accountant tallying the good and bad choices a person has made to determine whether they will go to Heaven or Hell. It aired the same night as the third season episode "Janet(s)" of the comedy The Good Place. In that episode, the main characters also visit the after-life accountant who is responsible for tallying up a person's choices in life in a similar way.

All of Heaven's gates are open once again following the Cosmic Entity's attack. Castiel states that even the gates that Metatron closed have been reopened for the first time since 8.23 Sacrifice.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 14.08 Byzantium (transcript)

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