2.11 Playthings

Title	Playthings
Episode #	Season 2, Episode 11
First aired	January 18, 2007
Directed by	Charles Beeson
Written by	Matt Witten
On IMDB	Playthings
Outline	Sam and Dean investigate two strange deaths at a small Connecticut inn run by a single mom whose young daughter plays with an imaginary friend.
Monster	Ghost
Timeline	One month after 2.10 Hunted
Location(s)	Peoria, Illinois Cornwall, Connecticut (Pierpont Inn)
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Synopsis

Sam and Dean investigate a series of mysterious deaths at the Pierpont Inn in Cornwall, Connecticut. The inn is run by single mother Susan who is planning to sell it. They also meet the manager's young daughters Tyler and Maggie, Susan's mother Rose, and the elderly bellboy Sherwin.

The initial investigation uncovers Tyler's dollhouse, a scale model of the inn with a doll left inside that resembles the corpse of the latest victim. When a property appraiser comes to the inn, he's mysteriously found hanged to death. Upset at his inability to prevent the death, Sam gets drunk and makes Dean promise to fulfill John's final order - to kill Sam should he turn evil.

While investigating, Sam and Dean at first suspect Rose of engineering the murders using hoodoo after discovering hoodoo symbols on the property and evidence that she had come in contact with such folklore. However, when they sneak into the upper levels of the inn to speak with Rose, they discover she has suffered from a stroke and doesn't possess the faculties for such actions. Discovering Sam and Dean in her mother's room, Susan demands they leave the inn.

Sam and Dean return to the inn in secret, however, saving Susan's life from her possessed car. They discover that the previously unseen Maggie is Tyler's imaginary friend, and is in fact a ghost of Susan's Aunt Margaret who drowned in the inn's pool when she was a girl. The mysterious deaths started occurring when Rose had a stroke and thus was no longer able to keep Maggie's ghost from the inn using hoodoo protection.

Maggie is motivated by a desire to prevent the inn from closing, as she would lose her playmate Tyler, and all previous murders were people related to the sale of the inn. To finally get Tyler to play with her forever, she throws Tyler into the pool and attempts to drown her. Before she can complete the murder, Maggie is called away from the pool by Rose, who trades her life for Tyler's, offering instead to stay and be a ghost and playmate for her sister instead. Sam rescues Tyler from the pool, and shortly thereafter they discover Rose dead. After the Winchesters leave the inn, Maggie and Rose (now in the ghostly body of a young girl) play jump-rope together.

Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Susan Thompson
• Tyler Thompson
• Rose Thompson
• Maggie Thompson
• Sherwin

Definitions

• Alcohol
• Aliases
• Dean's Amulet
• Dean's Leather Jacket
• Deer's Head
• Hoodoo
• Impala
• Poppets
• Quincunx
• Sammy
• The Shining
• Table of Death
• They're Brothers
• Toys

Music

• "Voodoo Spell" by Michael Burks

(plays when Sam is looking for Ava)

Quotes

Susan: Well, um, congratulations, you could be some of our final guests.
Dean: Well. Sounds vaguely ominous.

Dean: Of course, the most troubling question is why do these people assume we're gay?
Sam: Well, you are kinda butch. Probably think you're overcompensating.

Dean: Hey! Are those antique dolls? Because this one, this one here, he's got a major doll collection back home. Dontcha? Huh?

Sam: Big time.
Dean: Big time. You think he could come — or we could come in and take a look?
Susan: I don't know...
Dean: Please? I mean, he loves them. He's not gonna tell you this, but he's, he's always dressing 'em up in these little tiny outfits and, um, you'd make his day. You — she would, huh? Huh?

Sam: It's true.

Dean: Don't go surfing porn -- that's not the kind of whacking I mean.

Sam: You're bossy.

Dean: What?
Sam: You're bossy. And short.
Dean: Are you drunk?

Sam: Yeah. So? Stupid.

Sam: No! No, no, no. You have to watch out for me, all right? And if I ever... turn into something that I'm not... you have to kill me.

Dean: Sam.
Sam: Dean! Dad told you to do it, you have to.

Dean: Yeah, well, Dad's an ass. He never should have said anything. I mean, you don't do that, you don't, you don't lay that kind of crap on your kids.

Dean: How you feeling, Sammy? I guess mixing whisky and Jäger wasn't such a gangbuster idea, was it? I'll bet you don't remember a thing from last night, do you?

Dean: Or she could be faking.
Sam: Yeah, what are you gonna do, poke her with a stick? Dude! You're not gonna poke her with a stick!

Dean: Think you could have hooked up some MILF action there, bud. I'm serious, I think she liked you.

Sam: Yeah, that's all she needs.

Dean: Well, you saved the mom, you saved the girl. Not a bad day. 'Course you know, I could have saved 'em myself, but I didn't want you to feel useless.

Sam: Yeah, it does. But it doesn't change what we talked about last night, Dean.

Dean: We talked about a lot of things last night.
Sam: You know what I mean.
Dean: You were wasted.

Sam: But you weren't. And you promised.

Trivia & References

Cornwall, Connecticut, is also the location of Dudleytown, an abandoned settlement that is considered one of the most haunted locations in the United States. The land is currently owned by the Dark Entry Forest Association and is strictly off limits to outsiders.

There are multiple references to The Shining throughout the episode: Dean and Sam staying in room 237; the twin girls; the low tracking throughout the inn's halls, redolent of the movie's cinematography; and the scene in which Dean wanders into the inn bar to talk to Sherwin, reminiscent of a scene in the film. The room number 237 was also referenced in 1.18 Something Wicked.

Dean: Old-school haunted houses, you know? Fog, and secret passageways ... sissy British accents. Might even run into Fred and Daphne while we're inside. Mmm, Daphne. Love her.

Scooby-Doo - A long-running cartoon series about four friends and a dog named Scooby-Doo who hunt down ghosts and the supernatural. Daphne was a sexy redhead.

There are other references to the cartoon throughout the series and of course in 13.16 Scoobynatural, Dean gets to meet Daphne Blake.

Dean's credit card has the surname Mahogoff. "Jack Mahogoff" is a wordplay related to masturbation used in pranks (sound it out real slow!), according to Urban Dictionary. This is the same alias as Dean's mobile phone account in 2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign.

Dean: Yeah, maybe we've found our witch doctor. All right, I'll see what I can go dig up on boomin' Granny, you go get online, check old obits, freak accidents, that sort of thing, see if she's whacked anybody before.

“Boomin' Granny” is a song on the Beastie Boys album Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science.

Dean: You know there's a really good hangover remedy, it's a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray.

The line “How 'bout a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?” is one of the most famous lines from the '80s movie Weird Science.

The cinematography used in the scenes involving Rose Thompson (the grandmother) in the upper story of the hotel is highly reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Maggie: We can have lots of tea parties. Forever and ever and ever.

Reminiscent of the twins' famously creepy line in The Shining, "Come and play with us, Danny. Forever and ever and ever."

Minutiae

Filming Locations: Map of known filming locations.

Jonathan Bruce, who played Larry Williams, also played Convention Host in 5.09 The Real Ghostbusters.

Matreya Fedor, who played Tyler Thompson, also played the Alien in 2.15 Tall Tales.

Jared Padalecki stated that he and Jensen Ackles were somewhat freaked out by the room of blank-staring dolls in this episode. They kept daring each other to "poke" one particular eyeless doll in the eye sockets or to stand alone in the room. The pranks escalated slightly when Jared put a few of the dolls in Jensen's trailer "just to freak him out."

This is the last episode in which Sam is seen wearing the cast for his broken wrist, which was first seen in 2.05 Simon Said.

This is the third episode in which the brothers are mistaken for a gay couple. The others are 1.08 Bugs and 1.18 Something Wicked

The Deer's Head appears in this episode - in Sam and Dean's hotel room.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 2.11 Playthings (transcript)
• Playthings Script (Production Draft)
• Casting Sides for Susan Thompson

Promotion

• Promo

Episode Meta

• SPN Heavy Meta Season Two Meta Index
• 2.11 Playthings: I’m All Through With Promises, Promises Now by bardicvoice (January 2007); archive link
• Bond, Silvia. 2008. How He Move: "Playthings" Season 2, Episode 11. Pink Raygun, July 29; archive link