8.16 Remember the Titans

Title	Remember the Titans
Episode #	Season 8, Episode 16
First aired	February 27, 2013
Directed by	Steve Boyum
Written by	Daniel Loflin
On IMDB	Remember the Titans
Outline	Sam and Dean meet a man who dies every day.
Monster	Zeus
Timeline
Location(s)	Great Falls, Montana Lebanon, Kansas
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Synopsis

The opening scene begins with a drunk falling asleep at the wheel and hitting a walker on the side of the road. The driver takes off and a police officer finds the body the next morning. He calls in the scene but when he returns, the body is gone.

Back at the Men of Letters Bunker, Sam is showing more signs of wear from his trials to close the Gates of Hell. With no word from Kevin, they pursue a case dealing with a zombie. The local police officer swears he's found a zombie. The boys head to another town over to investigate a bear mauling incident which happens to be the zombie John Doe they are looking for.

They find the body and a minute later it disappears, but they are able to catch him and detain him at their motel to run some "tests." Finding out his name is Shane, the boys hold up at a motel. At the motel, a mysterious woman shows up and battles Shane. Sam and Dean discover that Shane has serious fighting skills. The woman disappears before they can figure out who she is. Shane has a heart attack and dies right after the fight. After some digging, Sam determines that Shane is actually Prometheus, a Greek titan sentenced to die each day by Zeus for giving fire to humans in order to survive.

Later at the motel, a woman, Hayley, and young child, Oliver, show up to find out about the body that was snatched from the morgue. The woman finds Prometheus on the bed and when he returns to life, he remembers her and she introduces him to his son, who happens to have the same affliction as Prometheus, beginning when he turned 7. The boys decide to figure out what to do about the curse from Zeus in order to save the kid from dying each day.

After finding a summoning spell to trap Zeus, they try to negotiate with him to release Prometheus and Oliver from the curse, only offering to lift it once he is released. Sam, Dean and Prometheus reject his terms, however Zeus talks Hayley into breaking the trap to let him out, telling her he will save her son, but Zeus goes back on his word to help. The mysterious woman shows up, who is revealed to be Artemis, a hunter goddess and she helps Zeus trap the boys. Sam reminds her that Prometheus loves her as in the old days and she buys it, helping them out. She shoots at Zeus but Zeus pulls Prometheus just in time to stop the arrow. Prometheus shoves the arrow through him into Zeus, thus killing Zeus forever. Artemis and Zeus' body disappear and Sam, Dean, Hayley and Oliver are left with the curse being broken.

Sam and Dean return to the Men of Letters Bunker and Dean prays to Castiel in order to save his brother through the trials since he knows he's really hurting. But Cas does not answer him.

Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Prometheus aka Shane
• Hayley
• Oliver
• Artemis
• Zeus
• Trooper Jack
• Drakopoulos

Definitions

• Aliases
• Balls
• Dead Guy Robe
• Dean's Bedroom
• Deities
• Deity Death List
• Fulgurite
• Hex Bag
• Led Zeppelin
• Men of Letters
• Men of Letters Bunker
• Spells
• Zombies

Music

None

Quotes

Dean: What's it been, like, three weeks? What's taking that little brainiac so long? It's a book. Read it.
Sam: Just a guess, but translating an ancient language with zero help might be more difficult than we think.

Dean: I got to say, I am a little disappointed.

Sam: Yeah, 'cause you wanted to shoot zombies.

Dean: Damn straight I wanted to shoot some zombies. Look, man, this is about as open-and-shut as it gets, all right? Guy gets Mack-trucked, goes down for a nap, wakes up, takes a detour into mama bear's den -- end of story.

Dean: You better start talking. What are you? If you say, 'zombie,' I swear --

Dean: You thinking curse?
Sam: Could be looking for a witch, yeah. You know what? He's parked here. He's safe. Maybe we should just get another room until we can figure this out.

Dean: Here we go.

Sam: What you got?
Dean: Dragon penis.
Sam: What?
Dean: Ancient Greek hunter by the name of Drakopoolos. Near as I can tell, he was a badass whose name, incidentally, is Greek --

Sam: No, no, no. I got that. Thanks, Ace.

Prometheus: The Men of Letters?
Dean: It's a secret society. This is actually their lair. We're legacies. No big deal.

Zeus: Tell me, has Prometheus experienced the child's death yet? How did he take it? Did he hurt? Good. Imagine a thousand children all dying in unison. Only then would you understand my pain. But we can't always have what we want, so... one will have to do.

Sam: So, you know who this is, Dean, walking us to our deaths?

Dean: Don't know. Don't care.
Sam: It's our god, Artemis -- the goddess of hunters.
Dean: Oh, that's fascinating.
Sam: See, she's who we'd pray to for courage when hunting the Gorgon or the Minotaur. Of course, she's not really worship worthy anymore, uh, having lost a step and all.
Artemis: The hell I have.

Dean: Really, Sam? Trash-talking a god? Seriously?

Zeus: I am doing this for us -- for our kind. He is the reason we're here and not ruling the world. He's the reason they have forgotten all about us.

Dean: Cas, you got your ears on? Listen, you know I am not one for praying, 'cause in my book it's... it's the same as begging. But this is about Sam, so I need you to hear me. We are going into this deal blind... and I don't know what's ahead or what it's gonna bring for Sam. Now, he's covering pretty good, but I know that he is hurting, and this one was supposed to be on me. So, for all that we've been through, I'm asking you... you keep a lookout for my little brother, okay? Where the hell are you, man?

Trivia & References

While there are many movies about titans and the Greek gods, Remember the Titans was a 2000 movie starring Denzel Washington about the desegregation of a football team.

In the teaser, an eagle is seen feeding on Prometheus after he is hit by the car. In traditional mythology, Zeus's punishment for Prometheus was that he was bound to a rock, and an eagle would eat his liver, which would then grow back, and then the process would be repeated the next day. Also, the next time Shane dies, and he is laid out on the motel room bed, the bedspread has a feather pattern on it, which may be another reference to the eagle.

Prometheus' alias "Shane" may be a reference to the eponymous hero of the movie Shane, in which a mysterious stranger rides into town.

Trooper Jack Spradlin refers to himself as 7 Mary 4. That is also Officer Frank "Ponch" Poncharello's call sign from the '70s TV show CHiPs.

Dean: Yeah, and if things go all "Dawn of the Dead" on us, you'll be our first call.

Dawn of the Dead was the second of George Romero's of the Dead zombie movies.

Dean: What are you, a real life Kenny?

Kenny is a character of South Park who dies almost in every episode.

Dean: This is, uh -- this is a lot more than a curse, man. You've got, like, some tiger blood. Where did you learn that kung fu?

Tiger blood was a term used by actor Charlie Sheen to describe his ability to withstand copious amounts of recreational drugs.

Dean: I feel like I'm sitting Shiva.

Sam: Well, that's not -- never mind.

Shiva is the traditional Jewish week long period of mourning. In Jewish tradition, the body would be buried as soon as possible after death. Shiva in Hebrew means seven.

Sam: Well, that's not -- never mind. Um...We need to think. Dean, what do we know of that has Jason Bourne fighting skills, dies a lot, and has a history with violent women?

Jason Bourne is a fictional spy character created by author Robert Ludlum, and played by Matt Damon in a series of movies based on the novels. In the first book/movie, he is rescued at sea suffering from amnesia. However he has retained the memory of some things, such as his awesome fighting skills.

Sam: Yep. He, uh, "Ocean's Eleven'd" Mount Olympus and stole the flames of Olympia.

Ocean's 11 is a 1960's heist film, that was remade in 2001 by Stephen Soderbergh.

Dean: Damn. Every day for how long? No wonder the guy's hard drive is fried. Did you figure out who, uh, Xena-wannabe was?

Xena: Warrior Princess was syndicated television series following the exploits of the eponymous character, on the road to redemption for her past crimes.

Hayley: Okay, so Ollie's dad is a Greek God who has been cursed to die every day by Zeus. And you guys are... Ghostbusters. Am I getting this right?

Ghostbusters is a film franchise about ghost hunters in New York City.

Dean: Well, the book calls for fulgurite. It's a little hard to come by. The last time we needed it, we, uh, stole it from a one-percenter.

The term "one-percenter" refers to a rich person. It was coined by the 2006 documentary The One Percent, about the growing wealth inequity in the U.S., and refers to the 1% of people who control the majority of the countries wealth. It gained popularity during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.

Sam: Oh, yeah? Then how did I know? What, have you spilled it to anyone? Homer? Hesiod? Herodotus?

Homer and Hesiod were Greek poets, and Herodotus was a Greek historian.

Writer Dan Loflin tweeted "Jared and I butchered several pronunciations of Herodotus before this video saved us. Actor Anna Van Hooft who played Artemis replied "I remember this! And laughing so hard I cried."

Dean: Yeah, well, you promised, okay? You promised to live a long, Clark Griswold life full of prostate exams and colonoscopies, all right?

Clark Griswold was the father in the National Lampoon's Vacation series of comedies. Played by Chevy Chase, he was an enthusiastic family man.

Minutiae

Ken Tremblett who played Trooper Jack previously played Ron in 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum.

Dean: Remember what Bobby said, hmm? 'Wood chipper beats everything?' Yeah, well, so does grizzly bear.

A reference to how Bobby killed the okami in 6.04 Weekend at Bobby's.

Some fans thought in the scene where Prometheus is dead on the motel bed, that Sam's voice sounded different than usual, and proposed that Castiel's voice that could be heard. The explanation is more prosaic - Producer Jim Michaels explained on Twitter that Jared had a bad cold.

Drakopoulos only loosely translates to dragon penis. In Greece it is a commonly found last name that actually means the dragon's son, or Drakos' son if Drakos is a name.

In the copy of the newspaper in which Sam finds the article about Shane aka Prometheus - which looks like the Weekly World News - there is also an article about a polar bear attacking a nuclear submarine at the North Pole.

The grave Sam was digging up had the name of Jim Michael's Greek grandfather - Pavlos Michalopoulos - on the tombstone.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 8.16 Remember the Titans (transcript)

Promotion

• Title and plot points from Spoiler TV
• Casting news
• Official Synopsis from ksitevtv
• Promotional Pictures via the Examiner
• Casting Spoilers
• Promo
• Sneak peek
• Winchester Radio for this episode