4.01 Lazarus Rising

From Super-wiki
Revision as of 06:16, 18 December 2013 by Mikael (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search


4-01 Lazarus Rising.jpg
Title Lazarus Rising
Episode # Season 4, Episode 1
First aired September 18, 2008
Directed by Kim Manners
Written by Eric Kripke
On IMDB Lazarus Rising
Outline Dean returns from Hell. The question is how - and why?
Monster Castiel
Timeline September 18, 2008 - 4 months after 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked
Location(s) Pontiac, Illinois
[[{{{prevep}}}|« Previous Episode]] | [[{{{nextep}}}|Next Episode »]]

Synopsis

Dean comes to consciousness - buried in his own grave. He digs himself out, and emerges in a field. All the trees have been felled, radiating out from his grave. He walks until he finds an empty gas station, where he eagerly drinks some water, and then examines himself to find no sign of the hellhound attack. However, there is a large handprint burnt into the skin of his left deltoid.

Dean grabs some more water, candy and a copy of Busty Asian Beauties. As he prepares to leave, a TV and radio switch on. Thinking it is a demon, Dean pours salt along the window, but he is soon crippled by a piercing sound that shatters all the glass in the area. As quickly as it started, whatever it was stops.

Dean phones Sam, but gets no answer, and Bobby hangs up on him, not believing that it is him. He steals a car from the gas station and takes off.

When Bobby finds Dean on his doorstep, he assumes it is a supernatural being and tries to kill him. Dean tries to prove his identity by cutting himself with a silver knife, and they embrace. Bobby then checks whether Dean is possessed by dousing him in holy water. After that, he believes that it is Dean, resurrected from Hell.

Bobby tells Dean that he hasn't seen Sam in months, but Dean tracks Sam using the GPS in his phone and finds him in a town near the place Dean was buried.

When Bobby and Dean arrive at Sam's hotel room, the door is answered by a scantily-clad woman. Sam also attacks Dean thinking he must be a monster, but when he realizes it's Dean, there is a tearful hug. The girl asks whether the boys "are together," but Sam says they're brothers. The girl takes her leave of them.

Sam promises Dean he didn't make a deal to get Dean out of Hell, or use his powers. In fact, he is upset that he was unable to save Dean. He tells them he was following some demons who lead him here. Bobby suggests they visit a psychic to see if they can find out how Dean got out of Hell.

Bobby and the boys travel to meet Pamela Barnes, an old friend of Bobby's. She starts a seance to reveal who saved Dean, and contacts someone called Castiel. But when she sees him in her mind, her eyes are burned out, rendering her blind.

Later at a diner, Dean and Sam discuss what to do, when the waitress reveals herself and the other people in the diner to be demons Sam is looking for. She threatens Dean, but doesn't take any action, and doesn't seem to know anything about his escape from Hell. The boys leave, although Sam wants to exorcise the demons.

Later that night, Sam sneaks out while Dean is asleep and heads back to the diner. When Dean wakes up, he again hears the piercing sound that he heard in the gas station. Bobby returns as it stops, and Dean convinces him that they need to summon Castiel. He calls Sam, who lies about being at the diner, and tells him he and Bobby are getting a beer.

Sam goes into the diner and finds one of the people who was possessed dead with eyes burnt out. The possessed waitress, although also blinded, attacks Sam, and warns him that everyone is going to die. Sam lifts a hand and using only his mind exorcises the demon. As he finishes, the woman who was in his hotel room earlier enters. It is Ruby and Sam has been working with her to develop his powers. He tells her he will tell Dean what he has been doing, when the time is right.

Meanwhile, Dean and Bobby perform a summoning ritual and a man appears. He is unharmed when Bobby and Dean shoot him with rock salt, and when Dean stabs him with Ruby's knife. The man renders Bobby unconscious, and reveals to Dean that he is Castiel, an angel. He tells Dean that he saved him from Hell on God's command, and that God has work for Dean to do.

Characters

Definitions

Music

  • "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC
(plays during "The Road So Far" recap of events)
  • "In the Shadow of the Valley" by Lost Weekend Western Swing Band
(plays in the gas station that Dean first visits)
  • "Fight Song" by The Republic Tigers
(playing when Dean and Bobby find Sam)
(playing on Sam’s iPod as Dean rips it out of the Impala)
  • "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by Martyn Laight (CPM - Carlin Production Music)
(plays when Sam and Dean are eating in the diner full of demons; also played in 2.21 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part One)
  • "I'm So Blue" by Katie Thompson and Martyn Laight (CPM - Carlin Production Music)
(plays when Sam goes back to the diner)

Quotes

Waitress!Demon: So you get to just stroll out of the Pit, huh? Tell me, what makes you so special?
Dean: I'd like to think it's because of my perky nipples.
Dean: (to Castiel) What visage are you in now? Holy tax accountant?
Castiel: I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.
Dean: Why’d you do it?
Castiel: Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.

Trivia & References

The title of the episode, "Lazarus Rising," refers to Lazarus of Bethany who was raised from the dead by Jesus and whose story is recounted in the Gospel of John.
Dean: The name’s Antilles, Wedge.
Sam’s alias, Wedge Antilles, is the name of a character from Star Wars.
The devastation around Dean’s grave - trees flattened outward from a central point, is reminiscent of the Tunguska Event, a massive explosion thought to be caused by a meteorite in Siberia in 1908. It has been widely referenced in literature and TV, including an episode of The X-Files which was directed by Kim Manners who also directed this episode.
In the gas station, Dean picks up a copy of Busty Asian Beauties, a porn preference of Dean’s mentioned in 2.15 Tall Tales and 3.14 Long-Distance Call.
Bobby: Dean, your chest was ribbons, your insides were slop. And you'd been buried for four months. Even if you could slip out of Hell and inside your meatsuit...

Dean: I know. I should look like a Thriller video reject.

Dean is referring to the zombie dancers from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.
Bobby: We could choose life.
Choose Life was a slogan worn on a t-shirt by '80s glam pop group Wham in the video for "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go." However, the phrase has been used in a variety of ways, including a slogan for the pro-life/anti-abortion movement. See here for more information on the different uses of the phrase.
The phrase Castiel says to Dean, "We have work for you," echoes the phrase "We've got work to do," spoken by Sam at the end of 1.01 Pilot, and by Dean at the end of 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two. It also calls back to 1.12 Faith, where when Dean asks Roy Le Grange what Le Grange saw in Dean that made him pick him out of the crowd to be healed, Le Grange replied, "A young man with an important purpose, a job to do. And it isn't finished."
When Dean pushes his way out of his grave in the beginning, he breaks through the soil with his hands first - a reference to the film adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie, and one that has been made on Supernatural already, namely in 1.02 Wendigo, when Sam dreams about visiting Jessica Moore's grave.
According to "Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels", Castiel is an Angel of Thursday in the occult lore. This may be a reference to the fact that Supernatural aired on a Thursday night on the CW network at the time of this episode's original broadcast.
Castiel's line "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition" is iambic in structure.
A number of Foilers were released in relation to the casting in this episode. The casting sides for Castiel indicated he was a demon, and Misha Collins has related that he prepared on that basis for the audition (Source). When Genevieve Cortese was cast, Kripke issued a statement saying she would be playing "a small town waitress named Kristy who gets romantically involved with Sam (Jared Padalecki) sometime after Dean’s (Jensen Ackles) death" (Source). Dean was not named in the sides, although a character called Guy appeared, in order to keep the manner of Dean's reappearance a secret. Read a summary of the sides here.
Jensen has described how he has a scar from filming the gas station scene, where real glass (rather than candy glass usually used in stunts) was used at Kim Manners insistence. He also mentioned that the "dirt" when he is buried was made of crushed Oreos.

Minutiae

Sam is staying in room 207 in the Astoria Hotel in Pontiac, Illinois.
The painting of the tiger in Sam's hotel room is the same painting that was seen in Andy's van in 2.05 Simon Said.
The demons have taken over Johnny Mac's Diner.
Sam has been wearing Dean's Amulet while Dean was in Hell, and gives it back to him in this episode.
Sam buried Dean in Pontiac, Illinois, which is over 200 miles from New Harmony, Indiana, where Dean was killed by hellhounds in 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked.
The license plate number of the white car Dean steals at the gas station is V6R 1G3. It is a 1962 Mercury Monterey hard top. This conforms to the number and letter configuration for Canadian Postal codes and corresponds to the Postal Code applied to residences in the Locarno Beach area of Greater Vancouver where the show films. Whether this is significant of anything is unknown.
The last 4 digits of the Social Security number Sam used for his cell phone account is 2474.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

Promotion

Retrieved from "http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=4.01_Lazarus_Rising&oldid=107330"