Supernatural: The Born-Again Identity
October 3, 2021 4:40 AM - Season 7, Episode 17 - Subscribe
Lucifer is driving Sam into madness, and when Dean calls every number in Bobby's journal in an effort to find someone who can help, he unexpectedly locates an old friend.
Quotes
Dean: How are you feeling?
Sam: Maybe you should cancel my U.F.C. fight.
Lucifer: Yeah. Keep that sense of humour, Sam. It'll get you through this.
Emanuel: You're angry.
Dean: Well, yeah. Dude broke my brother's head.
Emanuel: He betrayed you, this "dude". He was your friend?
Dean: Yeah, well, he's gone.
Emanuel: Did you kill him?
Dean: ...
Emanuel: I sense that you kill a lot of people..
Emanuel: I gather we know each other.
Meg: Just a dollop.
Emanuel: You can tell me. I'll be fine.
Dean: How do you know? You just met yourself. I've known you for years.
Meg: You're an angel.
Emanuel: I'm sorry -- is that a flirtation?
Meg: You can smite every demon in that lot.
Emanuel: But I don't remember how.
Dean: It's in there. I'm sure it's just like riding a bike.
Emanuel: I don't know how to do that, either.
Dean: This ain't going to go well.
Meg: I dunno, I believe in the little tree topper.
Trivia
The name Emmanuel means "God is with us".
Meg's face and body is noticeably swollen when her character returns. This is because the actress who played her, Rachel Miner, had sustained a back injury while filming "Caged Heat" (ep. 10.6), and was taking medication for the injury.
The title of this episode is a play on The Bourne Identity, about a CIA assassin who suffers from amnesia and has to figure out who he is.
As Sam and Dean leave the mental hospital at the end, the music playing in the background is the instrumental introduction to Michael Andrews's song "Mad World".
Quotes
Dean: How are you feeling?
Sam: Maybe you should cancel my U.F.C. fight.
Lucifer: Yeah. Keep that sense of humour, Sam. It'll get you through this.
Emanuel: You're angry.
Dean: Well, yeah. Dude broke my brother's head.
Emanuel: He betrayed you, this "dude". He was your friend?
Dean: Yeah, well, he's gone.
Emanuel: Did you kill him?
Dean: ...
Emanuel: I sense that you kill a lot of people..
Emanuel: I gather we know each other.
Meg: Just a dollop.
Emanuel: You can tell me. I'll be fine.
Dean: How do you know? You just met yourself. I've known you for years.
Meg: You're an angel.
Emanuel: I'm sorry -- is that a flirtation?
Meg: You can smite every demon in that lot.
Emanuel: But I don't remember how.
Dean: It's in there. I'm sure it's just like riding a bike.
Emanuel: I don't know how to do that, either.
Dean: This ain't going to go well.
Meg: I dunno, I believe in the little tree topper.
Trivia
The name Emmanuel means "God is with us".
Meg's face and body is noticeably swollen when her character returns. This is because the actress who played her, Rachel Miner, had sustained a back injury while filming "Caged Heat" (ep. 10.6), and was taking medication for the injury.
The title of this episode is a play on The Bourne Identity, about a CIA assassin who suffers from amnesia and has to figure out who he is.
As Sam and Dean leave the mental hospital at the end, the music playing in the background is the instrumental introduction to Michael Andrews's song "Mad World".
Good riddance. Lucifer was too needy and just annoying.
Yeah, finally. Someone in hospital on this show with less than perfectly coifed hair (though his beard looked groomed). Padalecki's twitching was decent. Though that's probably the best hospital sandwich I've ever seen (although Children's&Women's civilian cafeteria during my MSc was pretty damned good; the pizza the dept got for us at after hours seminars were from VGH's food service and not their civilian cafeteria - my god, was that pizza bad, not only as pizza but as "food" - I've had VGH's hospital food on Christmas Day, it was far worse than journalistic pictures of Union Gospel Mission's xmas dinners for the homeless).
Nice detail with his broken fingernails, but not enough tumor or rubor.
re: Dean ~ Family </vindiesel> - "Family" to Dean = his dad. There are jerks who are into old noisy cars because their dad were into cars of their day, who now insist on driving old cars that they deliberately mod to be extra loud because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. A lot of the time it sounds like they disconnected or punched holes in the headers. I think that Dean keeps harping on family because he wantsminions people to treat him like how he treats his (idealized, dead) dad.
re: Most Wanted - the boys aren't doing themselves any favours continually ganking the possessed in public and leaving a trail of bodies behind. "Real" fake identification (and medical insurance?) is hard enough to come by, getting them in their first name is probably even harder (they call Sam, Sam - but obviously not as Sam Winchester). Unless Sam's carrying high quality fake ID that he keeps updating, a dangerous-to-society John Doe showing up at hospital would probably get fingerprinted, and out Sam as Sam Winchester. As a Canadian, I have no idea - do hospitals accept cash payments in the US? Unless they stole platinum-coated-diamond-grade health insurance (and how many people have that?), there's going to be deductables, and whoever they stole the insurance from is going to know that it was stolen pretty damned quick.
Even if supernatural intervention made the world forget the Winchester boys, even the writers at Marvel Cinematic Universe know what a mess that would be, given the trailers for the new Spiderman movie.
I do like that Misha Collins got a chance to explore a different aspect of the Emmanuel character (who really doesn't come across as the original Emmanuel who asked to become a vessel).
Now I've got to keep an ear out for whether Collin's voice goes excessively gruff/ low again. Didn't, after he "remembers everything." Wouldn't be surprised if it was a deliberate choice by Collins.
IMDB's trivia section for this episode missed the "That was beautiful, Clarence" quote by Meg and a reference to "brown acid" (a supposedly "bad" batch of LSD at Woodstock, but probably just because it was the first time for many of the people who took it, who had completely wrong ideas of what to expect).
The "Nurse Masters" scene really reminded me of a scene from the last season of Fargo, with much of the same subtext. I wonder if that Nurse Oraetta Mayflower BSing her way into a new job after being "fired" from her last one scene was directly inspired by this one.
posted by porpoise at 5:33 PM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, finally. Someone in hospital on this show with less than perfectly coifed hair (though his beard looked groomed). Padalecki's twitching was decent. Though that's probably the best hospital sandwich I've ever seen (although Children's&Women's civilian cafeteria during my MSc was pretty damned good; the pizza the dept got for us at after hours seminars were from VGH's food service and not their civilian cafeteria - my god, was that pizza bad, not only as pizza but as "food" - I've had VGH's hospital food on Christmas Day, it was far worse than journalistic pictures of Union Gospel Mission's xmas dinners for the homeless).
Nice detail with his broken fingernails, but not enough tumor or rubor.
re: Dean ~ Family </vindiesel> - "Family" to Dean = his dad. There are jerks who are into old noisy cars because their dad were into cars of their day, who now insist on driving old cars that they deliberately mod to be extra loud because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. A lot of the time it sounds like they disconnected or punched holes in the headers. I think that Dean keeps harping on family because he wants
re: Most Wanted - the boys aren't doing themselves any favours continually ganking the possessed in public and leaving a trail of bodies behind. "Real" fake identification (and medical insurance?) is hard enough to come by, getting them in their first name is probably even harder (they call Sam, Sam - but obviously not as Sam Winchester). Unless Sam's carrying high quality fake ID that he keeps updating, a dangerous-to-society John Doe showing up at hospital would probably get fingerprinted, and out Sam as Sam Winchester. As a Canadian, I have no idea - do hospitals accept cash payments in the US? Unless they stole platinum-coated-diamond-grade health insurance (and how many people have that?), there's going to be deductables, and whoever they stole the insurance from is going to know that it was stolen pretty damned quick.
Even if supernatural intervention made the world forget the Winchester boys, even the writers at Marvel Cinematic Universe know what a mess that would be, given the trailers for the new Spiderman movie.
I do like that Misha Collins got a chance to explore a different aspect of the Emmanuel character (who really doesn't come across as the original Emmanuel who asked to become a vessel).
Now I've got to keep an ear out for whether Collin's voice goes excessively gruff/ low again. Didn't, after he "remembers everything." Wouldn't be surprised if it was a deliberate choice by Collins.
IMDB's trivia section for this episode missed the "That was beautiful, Clarence" quote by Meg and a reference to "brown acid" (a supposedly "bad" batch of LSD at Woodstock, but probably just because it was the first time for many of the people who took it, who had completely wrong ideas of what to expect).
The "Nurse Masters" scene really reminded me of a scene from the last season of Fargo, with much of the same subtext. I wonder if that Nurse Oraetta Mayflower BSing her way into a new job after being "fired" from her last one scene was directly inspired by this one.
posted by porpoise at 5:33 PM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Who IS this woman who sees a whole man stumble out of a reservoir, naked and amnesiac, probably covered in goo, and immediately decides God sent him to be her husband, HE AGREES, and then one day he runs off to heal some guy’s brother and just never comes back. Does he CALL her or does he let this woman assume God has called him home to the goo reservoir?
I wonder if Castiel literally absorbed everything from Sam including some dimension of his terror of Lucifer, or if he personally is that terrified of Lucifer.
posted by jameaterblues at 10:16 PM on October 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
I wonder if Castiel literally absorbed everything from Sam including some dimension of his terror of Lucifer, or if he personally is that terrified of Lucifer.
posted by jameaterblues at 10:16 PM on October 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, one of the main questions I have in all of Supernatural is 'what the fuck was up with Daphne'.
Like, that woman made Choices and then was never thought about again.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:02 AM on October 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Like, that woman made Choices and then was never thought about again.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:02 AM on October 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Pretty cool special effects as Castiel is transferring Lucifer from Sam's head to his.
Word seems to be out about Bobby's death.
What will happen to Castiel's wife? Is her husband Emanuel just never going to come home to her?
Nice to have both Meg and Castiel back on board.
posted by orange swan at 4:44 AM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]