Supernatural: 99 Problems
August 20, 2021 4:29 AM - Season 5, Episode 17 - Subscribe
Dean and Sam are saved from a demon attack on the road by a group of citizens from Blue Earth, Minnesota. They discover that the pastor's daughter Leah Gideon can communicate with angels who are providing instructions on how to achieve salvation, and that her followers believe that they will live in paradise on earth after the apocalypse.
Quotes:
Castiel's voicemail: You have reached the voice mailbox of...
Castiel: [heard in recording] I don't understand... why does it want my name?
Sam: No drinking, no gambling, no premarital sex. Dean, they basically just outlawed 90% of your personality.
Sam: Leah is not a real prophet.
Dean: Well, what is she, exactly?
Castiel: The whore.
Dean: Wow, Cass, tell us what you really think.
Dean: What about the demons attacking the town?
Castiel: They're under her control.
Dean: And the Enochian exorcism?
Castiel: Fake. It actually means, "You... um... breed with the mouth of a goat."
Sam & Dean: ...
Castiel: It's funnier in Enochian.
Castiel: I got your message. It was long, your message. And I find the sound of your voice grating.
Sam: What's wrong with you? Are you... drunk?
Castiel: No!... Yes.
Sam: What the hell happened to you?
Castiel: I found a liquor store.
Sam: And?
Castiel: I drank it.
Dean: [Dean arrives at the motel room with bloody hands] Paul's dead.
Sam: What?
Dean: Jane shot him.
Castiel: It's starting.
Dean: What's starting? Where the hell you been?
Castiel: On a bender!
Dean: He's... did you say on a bender?
Sam: Yeah. He's still pretty smashed.
Castiel: It is not of import.
Castiel: She rises when Lucifer walks the earth. "And she shall come, bearing false prophecy." This creature has the power to take a human's form, read minds. The book of Revelation calls her "the Whore of Babylon".
Dean: Well, that's catchy.
Dean: [to Leah] You're not the first prophet we've met. But you are the cutest.
Leah's father: [side-eyes Dean]
Dean: I mean that with total respect, of course.
Castiel: The whore can only be killed by a true servant of heaven.
Dean: Servant like...
Castiel: Not you. Or me. Sam of course is an abomination. We'll have to find someone else.
Trivia:
This is the 99th episode of the show.
This is the second time that Sam and Dean have visited Blue Earth, Minnesota, the first occurring in "Salvation" (ep. 1.21).
The preacher's family name is Gideon. The Gideons International is a large distributor of Bibles and is best known for its ubiquitous hotel and motel room Bibles.
The real Blue Earth, Minnesota has a 55-foot tall fiberglass statue of the Jolly Green Giant, which marks the mid point of I-90, America's longest highway.
When Sam tells Castiel about Leah being a prophet, Castiel says she's not, because he knows the names of every prophet past, present and future. Even if he didn't, he should know she wasn't a prophet because, as we learn later on in the show, there can only be one prophet alive at a time, and Chuck is supposedly that prophet at the time of this episode.
Quotes:
Castiel's voicemail: You have reached the voice mailbox of...
Castiel: [heard in recording] I don't understand... why does it want my name?
Sam: No drinking, no gambling, no premarital sex. Dean, they basically just outlawed 90% of your personality.
Sam: Leah is not a real prophet.
Dean: Well, what is she, exactly?
Castiel: The whore.
Dean: Wow, Cass, tell us what you really think.
Dean: What about the demons attacking the town?
Castiel: They're under her control.
Dean: And the Enochian exorcism?
Castiel: Fake. It actually means, "You... um... breed with the mouth of a goat."
Sam & Dean: ...
Castiel: It's funnier in Enochian.
Castiel: I got your message. It was long, your message. And I find the sound of your voice grating.
Sam: What's wrong with you? Are you... drunk?
Castiel: No!... Yes.
Sam: What the hell happened to you?
Castiel: I found a liquor store.
Sam: And?
Castiel: I drank it.
Dean: [Dean arrives at the motel room with bloody hands] Paul's dead.
Sam: What?
Dean: Jane shot him.
Castiel: It's starting.
Dean: What's starting? Where the hell you been?
Castiel: On a bender!
Dean: He's... did you say on a bender?
Sam: Yeah. He's still pretty smashed.
Castiel: It is not of import.
Castiel: She rises when Lucifer walks the earth. "And she shall come, bearing false prophecy." This creature has the power to take a human's form, read minds. The book of Revelation calls her "the Whore of Babylon".
Dean: Well, that's catchy.
Dean: [to Leah] You're not the first prophet we've met. But you are the cutest.
Leah's father: [side-eyes Dean]
Dean: I mean that with total respect, of course.
Castiel: The whore can only be killed by a true servant of heaven.
Dean: Servant like...
Castiel: Not you. Or me. Sam of course is an abomination. We'll have to find someone else.
Trivia:
This is the 99th episode of the show.
This is the second time that Sam and Dean have visited Blue Earth, Minnesota, the first occurring in "Salvation" (ep. 1.21).
The preacher's family name is Gideon. The Gideons International is a large distributor of Bibles and is best known for its ubiquitous hotel and motel room Bibles.
The real Blue Earth, Minnesota has a 55-foot tall fiberglass statue of the Jolly Green Giant, which marks the mid point of I-90, America's longest highway.
When Sam tells Castiel about Leah being a prophet, Castiel says she's not, because he knows the names of every prophet past, present and future. Even if he didn't, he should know she wasn't a prophet because, as we learn later on in the show, there can only be one prophet alive at a time, and Chuck is supposedly that prophet at the time of this episode.
Castiel: The whore.
Dean: Wow, Cass, tell us what you really think.
Who the fuck is Dean to be getting all indignant on this point? Should've been Sam's line, or they could've simply alluded to the Revelations character without using the word. Or skipped it and just made her a false prophet.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:15 AM on August 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Dean: Wow, Cass, tell us what you really think.
Who the fuck is Dean to be getting all indignant on this point? Should've been Sam's line, or they could've simply alluded to the Revelations character without using the word. Or skipped it and just made her a false prophet.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:15 AM on August 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Who the fuck is Dean to be getting all indignant on this point?
I was watching the first part of this episode wondering why I remembered hating it so much and then Dean says shit like "on a good day, you get to kill a whore" and it's like a cold wet fish slap to the face. I'm sure there are other contenders for ugliest line in the entire show but god, that's got to be way up there. (I always wonder what it's like to even say shit like that as an actor, I cannot imagine I would enjoy it.)
The servant of Heaven thing--some of that I imagine is Castiel projecting a bit, plus Dean swore loyalty and obedience to Heaven at the end of season 4 and backed out on it almost instantly. I guess it depends whether serving Heaven in this context means cooperating with the angels (hard no) or being a good person (I'm still stuck on the whore-killing thing tbh but the show's answer to this is clearly yes.)
It was pretty funny Dean swore he was just running to the car for some bandages and then immediately drove from Minnesota to Indiana and left Sam at the motel with the death cult.
This was probably too deep a cut to reference with everything else going on, but their friend Pastor Jim from S1 was a pastor in Blue Earth. Maybe this wasn't his church, but it's not a big place and surely people knew him and remember the pastor who mysteriously got his throat cut a few years back, and it would have made some sense that there were already people connected to that community with some idea how to defend themselves.
posted by jameaterblues at 7:52 AM on August 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was watching the first part of this episode wondering why I remembered hating it so much and then Dean says shit like "on a good day, you get to kill a whore" and it's like a cold wet fish slap to the face. I'm sure there are other contenders for ugliest line in the entire show but god, that's got to be way up there. (I always wonder what it's like to even say shit like that as an actor, I cannot imagine I would enjoy it.)
The servant of Heaven thing--some of that I imagine is Castiel projecting a bit, plus Dean swore loyalty and obedience to Heaven at the end of season 4 and backed out on it almost instantly. I guess it depends whether serving Heaven in this context means cooperating with the angels (hard no) or being a good person (I'm still stuck on the whore-killing thing tbh but the show's answer to this is clearly yes.)
It was pretty funny Dean swore he was just running to the car for some bandages and then immediately drove from Minnesota to Indiana and left Sam at the motel with the death cult.
This was probably too deep a cut to reference with everything else going on, but their friend Pastor Jim from S1 was a pastor in Blue Earth. Maybe this wasn't his church, but it's not a big place and surely people knew him and remember the pastor who mysteriously got his throat cut a few years back, and it would have made some sense that there were already people connected to that community with some idea how to defend themselves.
posted by jameaterblues at 7:52 AM on August 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
This show (and this episode in particular) swings so hard between funny and heart-felt and smart and just downright nasty and ugly. It's enough to give a viewer whiplash.
posted by sardonyx at 9:34 AM on August 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by sardonyx at 9:34 AM on August 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Why oh why do evil female beings have to be labelled as whores and skanks and sluts on this show. Isn't it funny that men are never spoken of that way, no matter how evil and/or promiscuous they are.
A pumper truck full of holy water is not a bad idea at all.
A drunk Castiel is just as humourless and understated as the sober one.
I don't get why Castiel thought Dean wasn't a servant of heaven.
posted by orange swan at 4:33 AM on August 20, 2021 [2 favorites]