Supernatural: Repo Man

October 1, 2021 5:14 AM - Season 7, Episode 15

A demon serial killer Sam and Dean exorcised in 2008 is back for revenge.

Quotes

Detective Sutton: Thought you guys might show up. It's the drummer boys. Agents Bonham... and Watts, right?

Sam: [after Sam and Dean jump Jeffrey in an alley, hold a knife to his throat and throw holy water on him to make sure he's not a demon] Hey, ok. Look, it's ok. You're ok, you're ok.
Dean: Sorry, just had to make sure.
Jeffrey: Make sure of what, that I peed my pants today?

Jeffrey: When you left me at the E.R., I had three smashed fingers, five teeth out, a broken wrist, nose, cheekbone, collarbone. I had to get 160 stitches. "Mugged." The doctor on duty said it looked like I got caught in the Spanish inquisition.
Dean: And we're the good guys.

Jeffrey: Did you ever think... that maybe I loved being possessed? Did you? I loved the connection, the power. And I loved him. Love of my life, actually.
Dean: Oh, you got to be kidding me.

Jeffrey: I was a wreck, an emotional shell, a drunk. I was suicidal.
Dean: I don't usually endorse suicide, but, man, what stopped you?

Dean: [to demon] So, is this what you do... find postal workers, make 'em go postal?

Demon: I'm a talent scout. That's all. Looking for the next generation of superstars... before they get to hell, like Jeffrey here. He had all the raw material... just bubbling in there. All I had to do was loosen the lid on his jar,

Dean's voicemail message: Leave your name, number, and nightmare at the tone.

Sam: You going to sleep?
Dean: Damn straight. Screw consciousness... that's what I say.

Trivia

Detective Sutton recognizes the Winchester brothers as "the drummer boys", Bonham and Watts. Charlie Watts is the drummer for The Rolling Stones and John Bonham was the drummer for Led Zeppelin.

Merrick, the name given up by the captured demon, is the name of one of Anne Rice's vampire characters, and New Orleans is her beloved city and the setting for many of her books.

When Lucifer yells "GOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOOOOOORNING VIIIIIIIETNAM," it is a reference to Robin Williams doing the same in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam.

The beginning of the episode takes place in season 3 between "Jus in Bello" (ep. 3.12) and "Ghostfacers" (ep. 3.13). There are multiple clues that say that. The spotlights on the car are back, looking for Lilith, and they used a normal exorcism.

Dean asks Jeffrey, "So what happened? Red-headed mommy make you stuff birds and put on dresses?" He is referring to the character Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 movie Psycho.

The demon possessing Nora's son tells Dean, "Keep sawing away at your ropes, Penelope Pitstop." He is referring to the ultra-feminine pink-clad damsel-in-distress racecar driver from the 1960s animated TV series Wacky Races.

posted by orange swan (3 comments total)

How did Detective Sutton recognize Sam and Dean as FBI agents he'd worked with previously, but not recognize them as the same Sam and Dean who had gone on a killing spree? It does defy belief that Sam and Dean wouldn't be constantly dealing with the fact that people would recognize them and believe them to be serial killers, even if the serial killers were supposed to be dead.

The flashback scene wasn't convincing. Sam's hair didn't look like that in 2008, and both Sam and Dean look significantly older than they did four years previously.

I liked that there was a good witch in this episode. Witches are, after all, human beings with special powers, and there's no reason why they couldn't be moral people who use their powers for good instead of evil. Is that the first time we've seen a good witch in the series?
posted by orange swan at 5:18 AM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

That most-wanted list story line was one of the worst things the show could have done for any kind of long-term continuity. It presents too many problems that, realistically, would be unavoidable. Pretending that didn't happen is about the only way to proceed normally. Otherwise it would have meant the boys changing their looks (dying their hair, growing facial hair) and switching out their ride. Unless they found some magic Macguffin to wave over the whole world to make people forget that Sam and Dean were wanted killers.
posted by sardonyx at 11:14 AM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is kind of a messed up story all around, but it’s still on the higher end of this season for me.

Becoming live-streaming mass murderers feels like a thing they thought through enough to have them camping out and using a different car for like three episodes and then they seem to realize they do not really want to commit to this and just quietly shuffle it off. It’s like watching Exquisite Corpse.

Having a script for explaining to a guy that you’re going to torture him but not HIM him but yeah definitely his body while he’s in it, is up there with ‘what if you were possessed but like. INTO it’ as a fucked up thing that nonetheless feels at home in this universe.

This might be the creepiest Lucifer gets, at least the version in Sam’s head. The bit with people smashing their heads in the library is really disturbing, as is the way Sam kind of casually walks himself off this cliff like they're in a buddy cop movie together. (I am a LITTLE sorry we didn’t get to see how Lucifer would have called last episode’s clown brawl.) Sam built a Lucifer in his head who needed him to say yes again, and he didn’t even realize what was happening till it was too late.
posted by jameaterblues at 7:22 PM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]