*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*
Krissy Lenz:
Hello and welcome to Gank That Drank: A Supernatural Drinking Game. You know us. We're the podcast where we make up drinking game rules for our favorite episodes of our favorite show, Supernatural. We tell you the episode, we tell you how the rules played out, we rate the drinking game, and then we tell you what's coming up for next week.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, that is what we do here.
Krissy Lenz:
Welcome, welcome, welcome. If this is your first episode and you're just a Cain-head and you were like, I didn't know I was dubious until now, but I didn't hear this Cain episode.
Nate McWhortor:
Or you're a big Timothy Omundson completist. Or just love Timothy Omundson, who is a delight.
Krissy Lenz:
Who is a delight. And I am a Timothy Omundson stan myself, so I'm here for it. And welcome and welcome to all our returning friends and fans. We're so happy to have you. I am, of course, Krissy Lenz, the director and a performer at the Neighborhood Comedy Theatre in downtown Mesa, Arizona.
Nate McWhortor:
And I, of course, am Nate McWhortor, a performer and teacher. And yeah, that's all I do, is perform and teach, at the Neighborhood Comedy Theatre in downtown Mesa, Arizona.
Krissy Lenz:
You're also a leader. You're on the lead.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah. Yeah, wow. That feels presumptuous. I'm used to doing your intro, so I almost was gonna be like, proprietor and doer of things. Like, nope. Yeah. Just prefer we're a teacher.
Krissy Lenz:
And we change it up. Yeah. We changed it up. Yeah. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Krissy, I am delighted to be here this evening with you to discuss my episode.
Krissy Lenz:
Your episode, which I have just watched and played along with, so I'm thirty-three drinks in.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah. Same here, actually. We're doing this vintage style where we do it right before we recorded. Right before. Just a heads up, Sophie may be joining us any second now if she hasn't already, because I heard her from the other room and she's sauntered in like the bull shark of a cat she is. There she is. There's Sophie. Yes.
Krissy Lenz:
The unofficial third host of Gank That Drank.
Nate McWhortor:
She always has opinions. And I don't know how she feels about this episode. Probably she's a big Cain fan, I imagine.
Krissy Lenz:
She loves a little chaos.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh, yeah. She will sit on your chest and put her claws right upon your neck while you sleep. And if that's not Cain energy, I don't know what is.
Krissy Lenz:
Have you checked her right arm for a little mark of Cain?
Nate McWhortor:
She might have one. She might have a little tuft of fur that's like a mark of Cain. Uh, yes, you demon cat who interrupts the pod all the time. Krissy, I'm sorry.
Krissy Lenz:
This is, of course, your episode.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. Yes. This is Season Nine, Episode Eleven, First Born. It is a classic. It is very memorable in very many ways. So many ways.
Krissy Lenz:
It introduces very many ways, yes. There's a lot going on.
Nate McWhortor:
What is going to be an arc of the rest of Season Nine, which is the Mark of Cain. This episode aired on January 21st, 2001. Krissy, I was living in Atlanta at the time and not watching Supernatural, probably. Written by Robbie Thompson and directed by John Badham. And it has some international titles.
Krissy Lenz:
Oh, great. What are they? I didn't look them up. Okay.
Nate McWhortor:
Hungarian and German are both "The First Blade," and then Portuguese and Italian just went with "Firstborn." So not many variations. Oh, that's funny. "The First Blade" — and, you know, that's fine. I like "Firstborn." I think Firstborn's perfect. It's great. Yeah, I like it. "The First Blade."
It's whatever. But it's obviously on the nose, because this is obviously the episode where we get introduced to Cain and we get introduced to the whole storyline that will end up being the Mark and the Blade and all of it, because we are trying to get Abaddon.
Krissy Lenz:
We're early on in living in the bunker. We don't even really super know a whole lot about the Men of Letters at this point. It's super fun. And we're right in prime Crowley time too. Prime Crowley.
Nate McWhortor:
It's where Crowley is like friend and foe at the same time. We're learning — there's a great moment in this where he says, "I've been inside your brother. We're practically family." He's like, "We are the furthest thing from family." But I'm like, yeah, but you end up being family, because Crowley's part of the family at a certain point.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, and Crowley's like one of those really unique characters who's just out to serve himself. So if he needs to make friends with the Winchesters, he makes friends with the Winchesters. If he needs to make enemies of the Winchesters, the Winchesters are his enemies. He's just always chaotic evil.
And he would just do what's right for him.
Nate McWhortor:
But that's what's perfect. It's as opposed to — he's the other side of the Cass coin, which is chaotic good. Right. Cass is always chaotic, and we see that in this episode as well, where Cass is just blinded by ambition all of the time. But his ambition sucks all of the time. Like it's — and even he's like — okay, we'll get into it, we'll get into it. That was my notes. Krissy, here are the rules for tonight's drinking game.
Krissy Lenz:
Those are the rules for the last episode. The other side of this notebook has the rules for this episode, which —
Nate McWhortor:
— are: if we see the journal, take a drink. I might as well take a shot, actually. Yeah, love that journal, love the journal. And in Season Nine — later seasons we don't get the journal as much.
Krissy Lenz:
It's great to do it. But you know what I love about the journal — and we can talk about it when we get there — he just knows what page to flip to.
Nate McWhortor:
Right, we'll talk about it — there's so many of those moments in the beginning of this episode where they find everything they need immediately. Or, I guess we could just assume maybe they've been looking for a while and we get shown when they find it. But anyway — the journal, take a drink. Take a drink when we get some demon eyes, which I —
Krissy Lenz:
— definitely —
Nate McWhortor:
— definitely undercounted, but I'm gonna add at least one in there because I know I missed it. Pop culture reference, take a drink, which was more fun than I thought it was gonna be, to be honest. When we see a devil's trap, take a drink. Take a drink anytime we see the big needle.
Krissy Lenz:
The big needle.
Nate McWhortor:
Big needle. Drink for a montage, though — I'm not gonna lie, I don't really know why. I mean, the show is fun. Alright, take a drink for some broken furniture. Classic rule — take a drink every time a demon gets stabbed. And then take a drink whenever we see the Mark. The Mark. And anytime that song "I Don't Want to Wait" comes on — the Creek song — I just yell "The Creek." Alright, I don't want to wait.
Krissy Lenz:
Are you the Creek? The Creek.
Nate McWhortor:
Are you ready to get into Season Nine, Episode Eleven, "First Born"?
Krissy Lenz:
I'm so ready. This is a great episode. Tell it to me, Nate.
Nate McWhortor:
Here we go.
Krissy Lenz:
Then our "then" is mostly just kind of recapping what's been going on with Sam in the last season — how there was an angel inside of him that Dean let inside of him to heal him from the trials that he partially went through but didn't fully go through.
But — okay — the angel lied about who he was, and he was a different angel, and that's all we really need to know for the purposes of our episode. Sam also feels bad about Kevin, and killing Kevin. The end of Season Eight is just a whole shit show of messiness and Metatron and everything.
If you watch the show, yeah, no. And if you haven't watched the show and you're listening to this episode, there's no way I can explain it to you in any interesting way — just go watch it. And then, also, the "then" is just talking about Abaddon. So, kind of setting everything up for the —
Krissy Lenz:
— back story, which you need to know. She's out there, she's doing her thing.
Nate McWhortor:
Episode, yes. I would say "now," because this is normally where it says "now," except it's not "now" — go to Jasper Springs, Mississippi, in 1863. What a time to be in Jasper Springs, Mississippi.
And there's basically a bunch of dudes that are like, "don't — literally, he's here, don't let him get the knife." And then we see Timothy Omundson, and he's like, "I'm here and I'm gonna smite the shit out of you."
Krissy Lenz:
And that's what he does. And smites stuff with red light.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah — another one, which one — we did an episode where there was pink goo that got sprayed all over when — yeah, the pink mist, with the angel — that was the one where Cass was human.
Heaven Can't Wait — oh yeah, the annihilator angel, a good episode.
Krissy Lenz:
Cass is human. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. Yeah. So it seemed a little bit like that, but it's more like a glowing red — anyway, we get some demon eyes in that, by the way. We get — take a drink for some demon eyes.
Krissy Lenz:
We do.
Nate McWhortor:
Because it's revealed that they're demons, and then Cain smites them. Dean and Crowley are in a bar — or Dean is in a bar having a grand old time.
Krissy Lenz:
Crowley has some very fun lines about — "she's trouble with a capital T" — this is where we get — Crowley informs Dean that there is something that can kill Abaddon, and that is the First Blade.
Nate McWhortor:
The First Blade. And we're setting up what our quest is gonna be for this episode. Good drink, because Crowley says, "I do love a buddy comedy" — that's a pop culture reference.
Krissy Lenz:
That's a pop culture reference. I counted like two, because he makes other references to buddy comedies throughout that little speech.
Nate McWhortor:
Alright, so we have — Cass and Sam are back, or Cass is at the bunker, and he's eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Krissy Lenz:
Or peanut — sandwich — it tastes like —
Nate McWhortor:
— molecules. He says it just tastes like molecules, and when Sam comes in he's like, "I used to enjoy" — or, "when I was human I had to eat all the time, it's very annoying," and Sam was like, "yeah, it's a lot of things we gotta do as humans." And he's like, "you just taste the molecules, not the sum of the parts." So Cass is feeling this ennui about not being human anymore, but he's like, "forget that, I need to heal you, Sam." He starts to heal him — which presumably he's already been doing, it's very weird, I think it's a weird moment. Yeah, it's a very weird moment. So he starts to just heal him sitting there, like he just got home — it's like, "okay, we're gonna do this," and he's like, "oh, there's some angel grace inside of you, still resonating," and he's like, "oh, we could possibly use — maybe Gadreel left that grace behind, we could possibly use it to track him."
Once again, Cass is blinded by ambition and just whatever mission is in his brain at that time, and is just like, "I don't even care — I don't care if it hurts you." Like, "I know it's probably gonna hurt, but — " okay, we'll get into that, because that's — they do research later. Doing research would have been a fun rule for this game.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, it would have been a good rule. At the beginning there's a lot of research done — like, okay, so the grace resides at the base of your neck, you can just get it out with a needle.
Nate McWhortor:
I mean, earlier they were screwing screws into Alfie's head to tune in to Angel Radio, so it seems like it's all cerebral in some way. Okay. But yeah, why did he have to jam it so far into his poor little neck? I don't know. Yeah.
I didn't like it. We saw John's journal in the bar, by the way — take a drink for that. So Dean and Crowley make a journey to John's locker — some locker where, in the journal, they found a clue that led to a locker that, of course, Dean knew where it was. Once again, Dean finds the information immediately that they —
Krissy Lenz:
— need. He just knows what page to flip to. And it's like, no — that's gonna take you hours.
Nate McWhortor:
Like — so when Sam and Cass — what the resonance of the grace might be, or whatever, inside of Sam — they find it immediately in the Men of Letters — the Men of Letters must be the greatest at categorizing their stuff, indexing their stuff to be able to find it.
Krissy Lenz:
Right, right, exactly.
Nate McWhortor:
And so — because they find it immediately, but then not only do they find that immediately, we don't even cut between scenes to make it seem like time has passed when Cass then goes from one book to another and is like, "oh, and here's this other crucial piece of information we need." It's just — yeah, I don't know. And then, yes, of course, finding everything they need in John's journal and John's locker within seconds.
Krissy Lenz:
Within seconds. They're just like, "oh, there it is."
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. So — this is what — oh yeah, we get a devil's trap in this. We see a devil's trap Crowley has to avoid in John's locker, so take a drink. Dean finds the perfect — whatever they need is Tara. This was the "T" in John's journal, and that's the person that he hunted a demon with, who then mentions the First Blade. And Crowley says — Dean says, like, "didn't they teach you this at Hunter's Hogwarts?"
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, Hunter's Hogwarts. I love that line.
Nate McWhortor:
Take a drink for pop culture reference. So we already talked about Cass and Sam finding just what they need in the library. And of course Cass wants to extract the grace. So — oh yes, I love the line — Sam's like, "well, the Men of Letters never had a guinea pig. We have a guinea pig."
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, he's so willing to sacrifice himself at all times. He's just like, "yeah, suck the grace out of me, what could be the worst?"
Nate McWhortor:
Oh yeah, I definitely wrote down, "woe is Sam, ever the martyr."
Krissy Lenz:
That's his jam. He loves it.
Nate McWhortor:
But okay, I do want to talk about that, because — yeah, he loves it, but does he love it because that's the example that's set for him by Dean? And by John?
Krissy Lenz:
Right. Yeah, I think Sam, of all the Winchesters, should be the one who doesn't feel that way and has the better perspective on things, and really shouldn't be doing these things, because he's — he's not above it, but he's moved beyond that way of thinking.
But it's like this is the Winchester trap that has always held Sam — this influence, even subliminally, of his dad, of his brother and his dad. Right.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, exactly.
Nate McWhortor:
So yeah, I was just like — this is such an interesting episode, especially an episode that deals with brothers, abstractly.
Krissy Lenz:
Right, right, right, right.
Nate McWhortor:
In a way, yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
No, it deals with them directly.
Nate McWhortor:
I mean, directly, but it's not — you know, there's no BM scene between Sam and Dean in this episode.
Krissy Lenz:
There's no interaction between them.
Nate McWhortor:
Right, no interaction at all. Because Dean's gone off on his own — that was sort of referenced in the "then." But it is just kind of interesting, especially when Dean's out there doing a hunt with Crowley and Sam's left back at the bunker with Cass. It's like, who are you, brothers, really? And then you have the spirited connection, the kinship felt between Cain and Dean later on.
The brother themes in this are very interesting, and just — yeah, I don't know. So Dean and Crowley go find Tara — whose knee always hurts anytime a demon is around, so we get to the case.
Krissy Lenz:
It hurts and it snaps in half. It's more than just, "oh, I've got a twinge" — it's just, boop, my knee snapped in half.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah. It's not like people whose knees hurt when it rains. It's more like, "oh, I just tore my ACL because a demon walked through the door — just broke my patella because this demon came in through the door." So — but it's a great scene. I like the scene, I like how she interplays with Dean, "you did my dad, oh well."
Krissy Lenz:
She's like, "yeah, I banged your dad sideways."
Nate McWhortor:
She's like, "I'd do the same to you, because you're so much sexier." But she — when she finds out Crowley is a demon, she douses Dean with holy water. He's not a demon. "Look, I'm just working with this guy, he's a bastard, because we both want Abaddon dead — we're trying to take out a Knight of Hell.
"Do you have any knowledge about the First Blade?" "Oh, just so happens, in my closet here I have all but one of the ingredients for a location spell. All I need is essence of Kraken." [inaudible] Uh, "all you gotta do is break —" the demons — she shoots the trap, and Crowley disappears and reappears.
Krissy Lenz:
Like, I was like, "don't shoot it" — like, erase it and then redraw it immediately, would have saved her life. Really would have.
Nate McWhortor:
Really would have. Yep, it's true. Stupid decision. Rachel Hayward plays Tara, by the way. Rest in peace, Tara — we hardly knew you before your skin was torn off screen.
Alright, so they do the location spell. It's in Missouri, the Blade is in Missouri. Cut to Crowley and Dean driving up to somewhere in rural Missouri. There's a beekeeper, and Crowley starts crapping bricks. He's like, "oh shit, oh shit." So it's kind of revealed at the end that Crowley kind of knew this was gonna happen.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, Crowley was definitely playing Dean. Love Crowley.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, he was definitely playing the part throughout the whole thing — playing it brilliantly. So — "we gotta get out of here, it's C-C-C-Cain." And Cain, of course, pulls the okey-doke on him and is like, "no, no, no, you're not going anywhere." I love that Cain's a beekeeper.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, I like that too.
Nate McWhortor:
"They're really remarkable creatures." Just — Timothy Omundson is so good, and he's so him, and it's so perfect, and this performance is so dynamic and subtle, and it's not over the top, but it's absolutely — it's gotta be one of the best guest runs on this show ever. But specifically this episode, I love so much.
Krissy Lenz:
I agree.
Nate McWhortor:
And he only does a couple more.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, yeah. He just pops in here and there, but he's so good. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Alright, so we have this incredible conversation with Cain, all about how he's retired. He shuts Crowley up, and Dean's like, "you gotta show me how to do that." Take a drink for pop culture reference — Dean says "the demonic AARP."
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, so cute. Pop culture reference.
Nate McWhortor:
So much — Cain's — so Cain's like, "well, you guys are cool, and thanks for stopping by, but as long as I know you're here, you're gonna have to leave. I gotta go get groceries, basically." Yeah, yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
The unfortunate part is that Tara — who got me some corn — didn't know.
Nate McWhortor:
Tara's visited by a demon, her knee goes off, she shoots it. But that's what happens, so we'll find out later. We then learn that Cain raised and killed the Knights of Hell — he's the one who created them, but he's also the one who destroyed them. And because Dean is just like, "I want the Blade, I want the Blade, give me the Blade."
Krissy Lenz:
"Give me the Blade." He's like, "no, get out." Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
"Give me the Blade, just give me the Blade, please." Back at the bunker, Cass and Sam are just doing the big needle, because it's just — out, like, every time we have Cass and Sam now. For a minute — and Sam is like, "no more, you gotta do it," and Cass is like, "I'm —"
Krissy Lenz:
"— having second thoughts about the thing that was definitely my fucking idea."
Nate McWhortor:
"This never would have been a thing if I just kept my fucking mouth shut, and now I feel bad about it instantly." Classic Cass. He makes decisions and immediately regrets them, that's his thing.
Krissy Lenz:
He learns lessons, Nate. He learns as he goes. He's like a child.
Nate McWhortor:
But I don't think he does learn. He's like a dog — he just keeps doing the dumb thing over and over again. Cass is, once again, blinded by his own ambition — going after — trying to get this grace out of Sam, and he's just instantly forgotten what it is to be human, and just wants to get Gadreel to get revenge, because that's all Cass ever knows.
Krissy Lenz:
I completely — I think he's reluctantly making it, and Sam is the one who's pushing.
Nate McWhortor:
Sam is pushing, but again, it's Cass — Cass is the one who brings it up.
Krissy Lenz:
He doesn't need to even bring it up.
Nate McWhortor:
I think it becomes reluctant later on, when he realizes the pain Sam is in. But I think at first he's like, "yeah, this makes sense — mission is destroy Gadreel, this is part of the mission." And I think if he had just not even said anything to Sam about the possibility of being able to track Gadreel, none of this would have ever happened. I
don't know, that's the way I read it. I read it as Cass — like, obviously Sam's the one who's like, "no, keep going, keep doing it." Like,
once they get started, but it never gets started without Cass even just off-handedly mentioning the possibility of being able to track Gadreel with this grace. And then he witnesses — he's reaping what he's sowing, and he's like, "oh, I don't like this so much, I'm gonna back out."
Krissy Lenz:
Okay, that's not how I took it.
Nate McWhortor:
That's fine, I can see that — yes, Sam is obviously being a martyr, and he's pushing it, and he's like, "no, because I gotta balance the books, right, I've got all these cosmic debts I gotta pay,
because I'm a Winchester, and I gotta feel bad about myself and the decisions I've made in life." So — they talked about Dean and Crowley snooping and finding out that Cain had a wife, right? Did we talk about that? We talked about that.
Krissy Lenz:
Not yet, not yet, not yet, okay. So they snoop, they find a picture — "oh, this must be his wife." And then Cain gets back from his grocery trip and is like, "I told you guys to leave, you really dumb dumb dumb dumb dummies." And then, "oh look, the demons are here," and he's like, "you guys — now I gotta move, you know what the real estate market is like right now." Yeah, he's pissed.
Nate McWhortor:
Dean is like, "does the magic that's keeping us in keep them out?" And he's like, "yeah, for now." And he's like, "but I'm gonna go shuck some corn, see ya."
Krissy Lenz:
He's very concerned with his corn. He's very into his corn.
Nate McWhortor:
So we've got the demon gang outside, and they're like, "oh, we don't care about you, Cain, we just want the so-called King of Hell and Dean Winchester — we think bagging those will make nice for my master." He's like, "master?" And he's like, "Abaddon," says Crowley. Cut back to the bunker — more big needles.
Krissy Lenz:
More big needles. I was very uncomfortable with the whole thing.
Nate McWhortor:
So big, so many big needles. Cain's just gonna shuck corn while he watches Dean stab three demons — three demons for Dean, one for Crowley — and a great little fight scene in the house, with a couple pieces of broken furniture as well.
Krissy Lenz:
So much broken furniture — there is broken furniture left, right, and sideways.
Nate McWhortor:
Heavy drinkage in this section of the episode, sure. So — great fight scene, which ends with Dean stabbing this demon on the table right in front of Cain and looking him in the eye, and he flops the demon onto the ground, and he's like, "what is this?" So kind of testing — it's like, "I knew I felt connected to you right from the very beginning." Whew, man.
Uh — again, talk about brother themes — and he's like, "no, you and I aren't the same, you killed your brother." He's
like, "yeah, and you didn't. Why?" Right. I
love that. And this is where we learn that, according to Cain, it was not God that was talking to Abel, it was Lucifer. And the only reason Cain killed Abel was that he made a deal with Lucifer — his brother's soul in heaven for Cain's soul in hell,
and then that's how Cain becomes the first Knight of Hell, and the one who makes the Knights of Hell and leads them and does terrible atrocities for centuries — until he meets Colette. It's always a Colette. There's always a Colette. It's always a Colette. [inaudible] — because that would have been lame.
Krissy Lenz:
One day more.
Nate McWhortor:
So we learn that, yeah, Cain was a badass murderous Knight of Hell until he met this nice lady who was like, "yeah, I know what you are, but you could not be that, and that'd be cool too." And then he's like, "oh, that sounds great." And then he went and killed all the Knights of Hell, except for, apparently, Abaddon — who we then find in a — I don't — not a montage, I don't know why I wrote montage, I guess more flashback than montage.
Krissy Lenz:
It's a flashback, yeah. It's a flashback.
Nate McWhortor:
And we get a flashback to Cain's backstory — his beloved — but they came for him, and he had to go out and kill them, except then one took his wife, and of course that's Abaddon, and Abaddon's breaking his wife from the inside and escapes just before Cain can stab — oh no, now he's stabbed his wife, and now his wife is dead.
This is why Cain is retired, disappeared off the map, as Crowley told us earlier. Yeah, it's just a great — love the backstory, love the whole everything about it.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, it's great.
Nate McWhortor:
It really makes you feel for Cain. I like the different take on the Cain and Abel story too — like, he did it to protect his brother, he did it for — you could totally see Dean doing the same thing, right? Like Dean or Sam doing the same thing — although I don't think Sam would. I think Dean would. I don't think Sam could ever bring himself to stab his brother. But Dean, yeah. I don't know.
Krissy Lenz:
And his brother gets stabbed by a nail, and he just moves on pretty quickly. He does.
Nate McWhortor:
It's this interesting — and now we're gonna watch again — the connection between Dean and Cain is so interesting. Dean, Cain — also funny, just now thought of that. So we get a good Cass and Sam BM scene, because Cass has finally given up on his mission to get as much grace out of Sam as possible, because Sam is obviously not having a good time with it. But we get some more big needle, take a drink. And Cass is basically like, "well, I've healed you and gotten all the grace out of you, and if it's enough, it's enough, and if it's not, it's not." And guess what? It's
not. Cut back to Cain's place, where we learn about the Mark, take a drink. The Mark. The Blade — the First Blade is useless if you don't have the Mark. So the Blade isn't here, of course. But what the Blade draws its power from, which is the Mark — that's what the finding spell, whatever thing they did earlier, led them to. This — not the actual blade itself, but the Mark of Cain on him. We
take a drink for that. That is actually where we learn all of Cain's backstory with his wife and everything like that. More demons are arriving though, and things are getting kind of catastrophic. So what do we do? We gotta transfer the Mark. Cain transfers the Mark to Dean. Dean now bears it. Take a drink.
Krissy Lenz:
It's really gross too. Like, the transfer is gross. There's a lot of gross stuff in this episode. A lot of it had me cringing and grinding my teeth.
Nate McWhortor:
The big needle, the demon whose face is all shot off with a shotgun. Yeah, there's a bunch of gross stuff in this episode. This — just the Blade itself is gross, obviously.
Krissy Lenz:
The Blade itself is gross, and when it goes into Colette, it's disgusting.
Nate McWhortor:
Made from a cow's jawbone, as the legend goes, as the lore says. There's more big needle as we try to do the spell to find Gadreel, but of course it doesn't work. And Cass knew this the whole time that it wasn't gonna work, so he's just like, "well, I'd rather have my friend Sam around still than have found Gadreel, because I probably would have killed him getting enough grace."
Krissy Lenz:
Right.
Nate McWhortor:
Because he said in the beginning, "is it bad to have this grace?" And he's like, "well, it's not hurting —"
Krissy Lenz:
Right, right — it might be helping. Right. So we get this Cass and Sam melodrama scene, and this is then followed by a Crowley and Dean melodrama scene.
Nate McWhortor:
And we get — I love the banter between them — where Dean's like, "I saw you with that demon, you handled the undercard demon and didn't bother to come help out with the main event," and then Crowley's like, "oh, I was holding out for the prize fight" — all this boxing and wrestling lingo that's going on.
Right — I love his pop culture reference there, and basically Dean learns, yeah, Crowley's been kind of punking him the whole time. He knew everything about everything, even though he was playing nervous — no, he knew exactly how this was gonna go. So
now Dean has to reckon with that — he's just this pawn in Crowley's game, and now he bears this mark, and it's gonna make him go find the Blade. It's in the deepest part of the deepest ocean.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, he threw it into the ocean. And he says, "you can't search the ocean, but I can." How? How? How?
Nate McWhortor:
Well, he doesn't need to breathe.
Krissy Lenz:
Right. But he's gonna go walk the floor of the ocean.
Nate McWhortor:
With a flashlight? My thing is, how can you see down there? It's dark.
Krissy Lenz:
You're gonna get all bit up by lantern fish. Oh, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
You don't even know what's down there. But he also has a warehouse of Kraken essence in Belize, so — talking crowd here. Anyway, that's the episode. That's Season Nine, Episode Eleven, "First Born." Timothy Omundson is just absolutely captivating and amazing and mesmerizing, and kind of just steals the whole dang show. Like he probably should have.
Krissy Lenz:
Yes, he sure does.
Nate McWhortor:
Just everything, the way he talks and his demeanor — he'll say a line while crossing his leg and just — ah, he's so cool, calm, and collected. And I also love the take on Cain. I think it's a really fun take on who Cain is and the legend of Cain and everything like that. This episode, for me, is like a ten out of ten Supernatural episode. Must watch. Yeah, that's how I feel. Krissy, how did the rules play out?
Krissy Lenz:
Okay, the journal — just the once.
Nate McWhortor:
Just the once. But it's fine, it's good. You need a "just once" sometimes, and that's fine. The journal's the perfect one for that.
Krissy Lenz:
How many times did you get demon eyes?
Nate McWhortor:
Only four times, but I feel like it's more.
Krissy Lenz:
No, I got four too.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, perfect. Alright. How many pop culture references did you get?
Krissy Lenz:
I got five.
Nate McWhortor:
I got six.
Krissy Lenz:
I didn't count the wrestling one.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, undercard, prize fighting, the buddy comedy. I like when Crowley said, "I hope there's a montage in the buddy comedy."
Krissy Lenz:
I counted that.
Nate McWhortor:
Hunter's Hogwarts. Oh — when Crowley's like, or Dean's like, "oh, why don't you just zap out of here?" and he's like, "why would I leave my faithful companion behind?" and he's like, "oh yeah, like your heart grew three sizes."
Krissy Lenz:
Oh, I didn't count that one.
Nate McWhortor:
Grinch reference, yeah. And then the demonic AARP — yeah, I counted that one. How many devil's traps did you get?
Krissy Lenz:
Three.
Nate McWhortor:
I got three as well. And big needles — five?
Krissy Lenz:
I got seven.
Nate McWhortor:
I counted the picture of the big needle that they showed in the drawing in the book at the beginning, so that's one that I count.
Krissy Lenz:
Shoot, I must have missed that one.
Nate McWhortor:
I put two montages for the "then."
Krissy Lenz:
I put two montages, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Crowley saying "montage" — I can't —
Krissy Lenz:
I counted the montage of him cheating Dean at the end. Oh, true.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. How many broken furniture did you get? Three?
Krissy Lenz:
I got two.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, alright, we're right on track there. Demons stabbed — I got five.
Krissy Lenz:
I got seven.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh, how did I miss two?
Krissy Lenz:
Got the three at the beginning.
Nate McWhortor:
Right — I guess, does he stab those guys though? He smites them, yeah — he doesn't stab them. Yeah, true. Okay, so maybe not the three at the beginning, so maybe I'm at four. You said you got five —
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, obviously the four during the fight.
Nate McWhortor:
Right, and then I'm trying to think what the other one was.
Krissy Lenz:
I think he got five during the fight.
Nate McWhortor:
Five during the fight, because I thought Dean got three and Crowley got one. Because I think Dean got four.
Krissy Lenz:
You got four? Alright. And then the Mark — I saw twice.
Nate McWhortor:
I got five.
Krissy Lenz:
What? What did I do? I don't know, but I got five.
Nate McWhortor:
Well, then your game is a lot better than mine, because I missed some. I got thirty-three total drinks.
Krissy Lenz:
Ooh.
Nate McWhortor:
[inaudible — running tally read aloud] So we evened out. Yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
Alright, so what is up next? We're going a couple seasons later — Season Twelve, Episode Two, "Mamma Mia."
Nate McWhortor:
Here we go again. Here are your rules: Sam gets bizay, take a drink. Someone says "mom," "mommy," "mother," any variation on the theme "mommy," "mother" — take a drink. We get burned, take a drink. Take a drink if Cass doesn't get it — Cass just doesn't get it, he's
not on the same page as everyone else. Take a drink if someone calls Crowley "Fergus." As always, we're playing the Sammy rule — if
someone calls Sam "Sammy," take a drink and say "Sammy." Take a drink for a BM scene. Take a drink for a palm slice — you
know I love a palm slice. And take your shot — double your drink, finish your drink, waterfall — for Dean saying "son of a bitch." It's a shot this time, it's not just anything. Thank you so much for listening, thank you for being with us at the end. I'm gonna tell a crazy story at the end of this podcast — if you want to stick around, I'm gonna tell Nate about something that happened to me last night, and you might want to stick around. But before we do — Nate, tell the people where they can find us in the real world.
Nate McWhortor:
In the real world, you can find us at the Neighborhood Comedy Theatre in downtown Mesa, Arizona. We do shows on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, at various times. You can go to nctphoenix.com for those times and tickets and show information and all sorts of other things. You can find out about workshops that we teach and stuff. Yeah, that's the real world stuff.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, you can find me on the Most Excellent 80s Movies Podcast, where a filmmaker, a comedian, and their fabulous guests revisit the 80s movies we think we love — or might have missed — with these grown-up eyes, to see how they hold up. Also a product of TruStory FM. If you love the pod, please like, rate, review, subscribe, thumbs up, tell a friend, tell a neighbor, tell your local sullen guy who goes to the farmer's market and just might be a biblical father of murder.
Nate McWhortor:
[inaudible]
Krissy Lenz:
That corn looked delicious, though.
It did. It was so juicy. If you want even more, and you have a little money to throw around, go to TruStory.fm and sign up to be a member. You
get every episode early and ad-free, baby. Yeah. And as always, when you're out there in the world saving people and hunting things — you know, the family business — keep the Gank That Drank motto in mind. Be excellent to each other, and party on, dude.
Nate McWhortor:
So here's the crazy story that happened to me last night. Okay. I went to trivia with our mutual friend Bobby. Yes. And we're about two rounds in — not two rounds of drinks, two rounds of trivia.
To — not — but you're not at halftime yet.
Krissy Lenz:
So we're — no, we're not at halftime yet. We're about seven questions in. And I get up and go to the bathroom, and when I come out, Bobby is on the ground.
Nate McWhortor:
No. What?
Krissy Lenz:
He had passed the fuck out. He had completely gone unconscious and hit the ground.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh no.
Krissy Lenz:
So I come running out and I roll him over, and I'm like, "oh my god, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, wake up, wake up, wake up." He wakes up. He stays on the ground for a while. I finally get him into a chair, we get some water into him. Meanwhile, the bar has called the paramedics.
Nate McWhortor:
Of course — someone's passed out there, makes sense. Yep.
Krissy Lenz:
So the fire truck comes, the EMTs come pouring out, they're attaching wires to him, they're shaving his chest, they're giving him an IV. They're like, "what happened?" I'm telling them everything, and they're like, "well, his heart rate is forty" — that's low, that's alarmingly low.
Nate McWhortor:
That's quite low. Yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
So they're like, "we gotta take him to the hospital." Okay. So I have Bobby give me his keys, because he drove us there.
Nate McWhortor:
Uh-huh.
Krissy Lenz:
And they go off to the hospital in an ambulance, and I follow behind in Bobby's car.
Nate McWhortor:
I was so freaked out driving Bobby's car, because I don't know how it works, and he's a very tall guy and I'm a very small woman, so the mirrors are all messed up, and I'm adjusting everything and trying to turn the headlights on, and I'm driving over to the hospital.
Krissy Lenz:
I'm so freaked out. And there were all these guys behind me popping wheelies on motorcycles.
Nate McWhortor:
And I was like, "please, not right now."
Krissy Lenz:
Not tonight. The last thing I need is to get in a wreck in Bobby's car while I'm driving to the hospital. So we got there, and eventually — so I got there, and Dorian, my husband, I texted him, and he was like, "I'll be right there." So he came over, and we waited with Bobby until they said he was gonna be discharged, and then I went home and Dorian waited for him, and about an hour later he got to drive Bobby home in his car, and Dorian took an Uber home. And Bobby's okay — they said it was dehydration, probably just extreme dehydration, and drinking one beer just lit him up. Oh my god, like a goddamn Christmas tree.
Nate McWhortor:
This Arizona heat is no joke.
Krissy Lenz:
It's no joke, and he wasn't even out in the heat — he was home all day, but he just didn't drink enough water. So you need to drink water.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, no, I'm on my third water bottle of the day, trying to hydrate.
Krissy Lenz:
You need to stay safe out there.
Nate McWhortor:
That is crazy. I'm glad he's okay. I'm glad it was nothing serious.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, I'm super glad he's okay, I'm super glad it was nothing serious. I was so worried, I was so scared. It was quite an experience — and then as soon as the ambulance left, they started trivia again.
Nate McWhortor:
I was actually thinking trivia was going on in the background the whole time this was happening.
Krissy Lenz:
No, no, they held trivia the whole time the EMTs were there.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh, I'd feel terrible, I'd be like, "no, no, no, keep doing trivia, we need to win this thing, damn it." Yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
And we were doing really well too. Bummer, I forgot.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, yeah, I should have come over there — well, I didn't even get done with my work meeting till seven.
Krissy Lenz:
Well, he could have come — he would have been there for the show. Wow.
Yeah, it was crazy. Alright, that was my fun story. Thanks for staying, super fans, we love you. And party on, dudes.
Nate McWhortor:
Party on.
Krissy Lenz:
Hello and welcome to Gank That Drank: A Supernatural Drinking Game. You know us. We're the podcast where we make up drinking game rules for our favorite episodes of our favorite show, Supernatural. We tell you the episode, we tell you how the rules played out, we rate the drinking game, and then we tell you what's coming up for next week.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, that is what we do here.
Krissy Lenz:
Welcome, welcome, welcome. If this is your first episode and you're just a Cain-head and you were like, I didn't know I was dubious until now, but I didn't hear this Cain episode.
Nate McWhortor:
Or you're a big Timothy Omundson completist. Or just love Timothy Omundson, who is a delight.
Krissy Lenz:
Who is a delight. And I am a Timothy Omundson stan myself, so I'm here for it. And welcome and welcome to all our returning friends and fans. We're so happy to have you. I am, of course, Krissy Lenz, the director and a performer at the Neighborhood Comedy Theatre in downtown Mesa, Arizona.
Nate McWhortor:
And I, of course, am Nate McWhortor, a performer and teacher. And yeah, that's all I do, is perform and teach, at the Neighborhood Comedy Theatre in downtown Mesa, Arizona.
Krissy Lenz:
You're also a leader. You're on the lead.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah. Yeah, wow. That feels presumptuous. I'm used to doing your intro, so I almost was gonna be like, proprietor and doer of things. Like, nope. Yeah. Just prefer we're a teacher.
Krissy Lenz:
And we change it up. Yeah. We changed it up. Yeah. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Krissy, I am delighted to be here this evening with you to discuss my episode.
Krissy Lenz:
Your episode, which I have just watched and played along with, so I'm thirty-three drinks in.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah. Same here, actually. We're doing this vintage style where we do it right before we recorded. Right before. Just a heads up, Sophie may be joining us any second now if she hasn't already, because I heard her from the other room and she's sauntered in like the bull shark of a cat she is. There she is. There's Sophie. Yes.
Krissy Lenz:
The unofficial third host of Gank That Drank.
Nate McWhortor:
She always has opinions. And I don't know how she feels about this episode. Probably she's a big Cain fan, I imagine.
Krissy Lenz:
She loves a little chaos.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh, yeah. She will sit on your chest and put her claws right upon your neck while you sleep. And if that's not Cain energy, I don't know what is.
Krissy Lenz:
Have you checked her right arm for a little mark of Cain?
Nate McWhortor:
She might have one. She might have a little tuft of fur that's like a mark of Cain. Uh, yes, you demon cat who interrupts the pod all the time. Krissy, I'm sorry.
Krissy Lenz:
This is, of course, your episode.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. Yes. This is Season Nine, Episode Eleven, First Born. It is a classic. It is very memorable in very many ways. So many ways.
Krissy Lenz:
It introduces very many ways, yes. There's a lot going on.
Nate McWhortor:
What is going to be an arc of the rest of Season Nine, which is the Mark of Cain. This episode aired on January 21st, 2001. Krissy, I was living in Atlanta at the time and not watching Supernatural, probably. Written by Robbie Thompson and directed by John Badham. And it has some international titles.
Krissy Lenz:
Oh, great. What are they? I didn't look them up. Okay.
Nate McWhortor:
Hungarian and German are both "The First Blade," and then Portuguese and Italian just went with "Firstborn." So not many variations. Oh, that's funny. "The First Blade" — and, you know, that's fine. I like "Firstborn." I think Firstborn's perfect. It's great. Yeah, I like it. "The First Blade."
It's whatever. But it's obviously on the nose, because this is obviously the episode where we get introduced to Cain and we get introduced to the whole storyline that will end up being the Mark and the Blade and all of it, because we are trying to get Abaddon.
Krissy Lenz:
We're early on in living in the bunker. We don't even really super know a whole lot about the Men of Letters at this point. It's super fun. And we're right in prime Crowley time too. Prime Crowley.
Nate McWhortor:
It's where Crowley is like friend and foe at the same time. We're learning — there's a great moment in this where he says, "I've been inside your brother. We're practically family." He's like, "We are the furthest thing from family." But I'm like, yeah, but you end up being family, because Crowley's part of the family at a certain point.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, and Crowley's like one of those really unique characters who's just out to serve himself. So if he needs to make friends with the Winchesters, he makes friends with the Winchesters. If he needs to make enemies of the Winchesters, the Winchesters are his enemies. He's just always chaotic evil.
And he would just do what's right for him.
Nate McWhortor:
But that's what's perfect. It's as opposed to — he's the other side of the Cass coin, which is chaotic good. Right. Cass is always chaotic, and we see that in this episode as well, where Cass is just blinded by ambition all of the time. But his ambition sucks all of the time. Like it's — and even he's like — okay, we'll get into it, we'll get into it. That was my notes. Krissy, here are the rules for tonight's drinking game.
Krissy Lenz:
Those are the rules for the last episode. The other side of this notebook has the rules for this episode, which —
Nate McWhortor:
— are: if we see the journal, take a drink. I might as well take a shot, actually. Yeah, love that journal, love the journal. And in Season Nine — later seasons we don't get the journal as much.
Krissy Lenz:
It's great to do it. But you know what I love about the journal — and we can talk about it when we get there — he just knows what page to flip to.
Nate McWhortor:
Right, we'll talk about it — there's so many of those moments in the beginning of this episode where they find everything they need immediately. Or, I guess we could just assume maybe they've been looking for a while and we get shown when they find it. But anyway — the journal, take a drink. Take a drink when we get some demon eyes, which I —
Krissy Lenz:
— definitely —
Nate McWhortor:
— definitely undercounted, but I'm gonna add at least one in there because I know I missed it. Pop culture reference, take a drink, which was more fun than I thought it was gonna be, to be honest. When we see a devil's trap, take a drink. Take a drink anytime we see the big needle.
Krissy Lenz:
The big needle.
Nate McWhortor:
Big needle. Drink for a montage, though — I'm not gonna lie, I don't really know why. I mean, the show is fun. Alright, take a drink for some broken furniture. Classic rule — take a drink every time a demon gets stabbed. And then take a drink whenever we see the Mark. The Mark. And anytime that song "I Don't Want to Wait" comes on — the Creek song — I just yell "The Creek." Alright, I don't want to wait.
Krissy Lenz:
Are you the Creek? The Creek.
Nate McWhortor:
Are you ready to get into Season Nine, Episode Eleven, "First Born"?
Krissy Lenz:
I'm so ready. This is a great episode. Tell it to me, Nate.
Nate McWhortor:
Here we go.
Krissy Lenz:
Then our "then" is mostly just kind of recapping what's been going on with Sam in the last season — how there was an angel inside of him that Dean let inside of him to heal him from the trials that he partially went through but didn't fully go through.
But — okay — the angel lied about who he was, and he was a different angel, and that's all we really need to know for the purposes of our episode. Sam also feels bad about Kevin, and killing Kevin. The end of Season Eight is just a whole shit show of messiness and Metatron and everything.
If you watch the show, yeah, no. And if you haven't watched the show and you're listening to this episode, there's no way I can explain it to you in any interesting way — just go watch it. And then, also, the "then" is just talking about Abaddon. So, kind of setting everything up for the —
Krissy Lenz:
— back story, which you need to know. She's out there, she's doing her thing.
Nate McWhortor:
Episode, yes. I would say "now," because this is normally where it says "now," except it's not "now" — go to Jasper Springs, Mississippi, in 1863. What a time to be in Jasper Springs, Mississippi.
And there's basically a bunch of dudes that are like, "don't — literally, he's here, don't let him get the knife." And then we see Timothy Omundson, and he's like, "I'm here and I'm gonna smite the shit out of you."
Krissy Lenz:
And that's what he does. And smites stuff with red light.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah — another one, which one — we did an episode where there was pink goo that got sprayed all over when — yeah, the pink mist, with the angel — that was the one where Cass was human.
Heaven Can't Wait — oh yeah, the annihilator angel, a good episode.
Krissy Lenz:
Cass is human. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. Yeah. So it seemed a little bit like that, but it's more like a glowing red — anyway, we get some demon eyes in that, by the way. We get — take a drink for some demon eyes.
Krissy Lenz:
We do.
Nate McWhortor:
Because it's revealed that they're demons, and then Cain smites them. Dean and Crowley are in a bar — or Dean is in a bar having a grand old time.
Krissy Lenz:
Crowley has some very fun lines about — "she's trouble with a capital T" — this is where we get — Crowley informs Dean that there is something that can kill Abaddon, and that is the First Blade.
Nate McWhortor:
The First Blade. And we're setting up what our quest is gonna be for this episode. Good drink, because Crowley says, "I do love a buddy comedy" — that's a pop culture reference.
Krissy Lenz:
That's a pop culture reference. I counted like two, because he makes other references to buddy comedies throughout that little speech.
Nate McWhortor:
Alright, so we have — Cass and Sam are back, or Cass is at the bunker, and he's eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Krissy Lenz:
Or peanut — sandwich — it tastes like —
Nate McWhortor:
— molecules. He says it just tastes like molecules, and when Sam comes in he's like, "I used to enjoy" — or, "when I was human I had to eat all the time, it's very annoying," and Sam was like, "yeah, it's a lot of things we gotta do as humans." And he's like, "you just taste the molecules, not the sum of the parts." So Cass is feeling this ennui about not being human anymore, but he's like, "forget that, I need to heal you, Sam." He starts to heal him — which presumably he's already been doing, it's very weird, I think it's a weird moment. Yeah, it's a very weird moment. So he starts to just heal him sitting there, like he just got home — it's like, "okay, we're gonna do this," and he's like, "oh, there's some angel grace inside of you, still resonating," and he's like, "oh, we could possibly use — maybe Gadreel left that grace behind, we could possibly use it to track him."
Once again, Cass is blinded by ambition and just whatever mission is in his brain at that time, and is just like, "I don't even care — I don't care if it hurts you." Like, "I know it's probably gonna hurt, but — " okay, we'll get into that, because that's — they do research later. Doing research would have been a fun rule for this game.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, it would have been a good rule. At the beginning there's a lot of research done — like, okay, so the grace resides at the base of your neck, you can just get it out with a needle.
Nate McWhortor:
I mean, earlier they were screwing screws into Alfie's head to tune in to Angel Radio, so it seems like it's all cerebral in some way. Okay. But yeah, why did he have to jam it so far into his poor little neck? I don't know. Yeah.
I didn't like it. We saw John's journal in the bar, by the way — take a drink for that. So Dean and Crowley make a journey to John's locker — some locker where, in the journal, they found a clue that led to a locker that, of course, Dean knew where it was. Once again, Dean finds the information immediately that they —
Krissy Lenz:
— need. He just knows what page to flip to. And it's like, no — that's gonna take you hours.
Nate McWhortor:
Like — so when Sam and Cass — what the resonance of the grace might be, or whatever, inside of Sam — they find it immediately in the Men of Letters — the Men of Letters must be the greatest at categorizing their stuff, indexing their stuff to be able to find it.
Krissy Lenz:
Right, right, exactly.
Nate McWhortor:
And so — because they find it immediately, but then not only do they find that immediately, we don't even cut between scenes to make it seem like time has passed when Cass then goes from one book to another and is like, "oh, and here's this other crucial piece of information we need." It's just — yeah, I don't know. And then, yes, of course, finding everything they need in John's journal and John's locker within seconds.
Krissy Lenz:
Within seconds. They're just like, "oh, there it is."
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. So — this is what — oh yeah, we get a devil's trap in this. We see a devil's trap Crowley has to avoid in John's locker, so take a drink. Dean finds the perfect — whatever they need is Tara. This was the "T" in John's journal, and that's the person that he hunted a demon with, who then mentions the First Blade. And Crowley says — Dean says, like, "didn't they teach you this at Hunter's Hogwarts?"
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, Hunter's Hogwarts. I love that line.
Nate McWhortor:
Take a drink for pop culture reference. So we already talked about Cass and Sam finding just what they need in the library. And of course Cass wants to extract the grace. So — oh yes, I love the line — Sam's like, "well, the Men of Letters never had a guinea pig. We have a guinea pig."
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, he's so willing to sacrifice himself at all times. He's just like, "yeah, suck the grace out of me, what could be the worst?"
Nate McWhortor:
Oh yeah, I definitely wrote down, "woe is Sam, ever the martyr."
Krissy Lenz:
That's his jam. He loves it.
Nate McWhortor:
But okay, I do want to talk about that, because — yeah, he loves it, but does he love it because that's the example that's set for him by Dean? And by John?
Krissy Lenz:
Right. Yeah, I think Sam, of all the Winchesters, should be the one who doesn't feel that way and has the better perspective on things, and really shouldn't be doing these things, because he's — he's not above it, but he's moved beyond that way of thinking.
But it's like this is the Winchester trap that has always held Sam — this influence, even subliminally, of his dad, of his brother and his dad. Right.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, exactly.
Nate McWhortor:
So yeah, I was just like — this is such an interesting episode, especially an episode that deals with brothers, abstractly.
Krissy Lenz:
Right, right, right, right.
Nate McWhortor:
In a way, yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
No, it deals with them directly.
Nate McWhortor:
I mean, directly, but it's not — you know, there's no BM scene between Sam and Dean in this episode.
Krissy Lenz:
There's no interaction between them.
Nate McWhortor:
Right, no interaction at all. Because Dean's gone off on his own — that was sort of referenced in the "then." But it is just kind of interesting, especially when Dean's out there doing a hunt with Crowley and Sam's left back at the bunker with Cass. It's like, who are you, brothers, really? And then you have the spirited connection, the kinship felt between Cain and Dean later on.
The brother themes in this are very interesting, and just — yeah, I don't know. So Dean and Crowley go find Tara — whose knee always hurts anytime a demon is around, so we get to the case.
Krissy Lenz:
It hurts and it snaps in half. It's more than just, "oh, I've got a twinge" — it's just, boop, my knee snapped in half.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah. It's not like people whose knees hurt when it rains. It's more like, "oh, I just tore my ACL because a demon walked through the door — just broke my patella because this demon came in through the door." So — but it's a great scene. I like the scene, I like how she interplays with Dean, "you did my dad, oh well."
Krissy Lenz:
She's like, "yeah, I banged your dad sideways."
Nate McWhortor:
She's like, "I'd do the same to you, because you're so much sexier." But she — when she finds out Crowley is a demon, she douses Dean with holy water. He's not a demon. "Look, I'm just working with this guy, he's a bastard, because we both want Abaddon dead — we're trying to take out a Knight of Hell.
"Do you have any knowledge about the First Blade?" "Oh, just so happens, in my closet here I have all but one of the ingredients for a location spell. All I need is essence of Kraken." [inaudible] Uh, "all you gotta do is break —" the demons — she shoots the trap, and Crowley disappears and reappears.
Krissy Lenz:
Like, I was like, "don't shoot it" — like, erase it and then redraw it immediately, would have saved her life. Really would have.
Nate McWhortor:
Really would have. Yep, it's true. Stupid decision. Rachel Hayward plays Tara, by the way. Rest in peace, Tara — we hardly knew you before your skin was torn off screen.
Alright, so they do the location spell. It's in Missouri, the Blade is in Missouri. Cut to Crowley and Dean driving up to somewhere in rural Missouri. There's a beekeeper, and Crowley starts crapping bricks. He's like, "oh shit, oh shit." So it's kind of revealed at the end that Crowley kind of knew this was gonna happen.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, Crowley was definitely playing Dean. Love Crowley.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, he was definitely playing the part throughout the whole thing — playing it brilliantly. So — "we gotta get out of here, it's C-C-C-Cain." And Cain, of course, pulls the okey-doke on him and is like, "no, no, no, you're not going anywhere." I love that Cain's a beekeeper.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, I like that too.
Nate McWhortor:
"They're really remarkable creatures." Just — Timothy Omundson is so good, and he's so him, and it's so perfect, and this performance is so dynamic and subtle, and it's not over the top, but it's absolutely — it's gotta be one of the best guest runs on this show ever. But specifically this episode, I love so much.
Krissy Lenz:
I agree.
Nate McWhortor:
And he only does a couple more.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, yeah. He just pops in here and there, but he's so good. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Alright, so we have this incredible conversation with Cain, all about how he's retired. He shuts Crowley up, and Dean's like, "you gotta show me how to do that." Take a drink for pop culture reference — Dean says "the demonic AARP."
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, so cute. Pop culture reference.
Nate McWhortor:
So much — Cain's — so Cain's like, "well, you guys are cool, and thanks for stopping by, but as long as I know you're here, you're gonna have to leave. I gotta go get groceries, basically." Yeah, yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
The unfortunate part is that Tara — who got me some corn — didn't know.
Nate McWhortor:
Tara's visited by a demon, her knee goes off, she shoots it. But that's what happens, so we'll find out later. We then learn that Cain raised and killed the Knights of Hell — he's the one who created them, but he's also the one who destroyed them. And because Dean is just like, "I want the Blade, I want the Blade, give me the Blade."
Krissy Lenz:
"Give me the Blade." He's like, "no, get out." Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
"Give me the Blade, just give me the Blade, please." Back at the bunker, Cass and Sam are just doing the big needle, because it's just — out, like, every time we have Cass and Sam now. For a minute — and Sam is like, "no more, you gotta do it," and Cass is like, "I'm —"
Krissy Lenz:
"— having second thoughts about the thing that was definitely my fucking idea."
Nate McWhortor:
"This never would have been a thing if I just kept my fucking mouth shut, and now I feel bad about it instantly." Classic Cass. He makes decisions and immediately regrets them, that's his thing.
Krissy Lenz:
He learns lessons, Nate. He learns as he goes. He's like a child.
Nate McWhortor:
But I don't think he does learn. He's like a dog — he just keeps doing the dumb thing over and over again. Cass is, once again, blinded by his own ambition — going after — trying to get this grace out of Sam, and he's just instantly forgotten what it is to be human, and just wants to get Gadreel to get revenge, because that's all Cass ever knows.
Krissy Lenz:
I completely — I think he's reluctantly making it, and Sam is the one who's pushing.
Nate McWhortor:
Sam is pushing, but again, it's Cass — Cass is the one who brings it up.
Krissy Lenz:
He doesn't need to even bring it up.
Nate McWhortor:
I think it becomes reluctant later on, when he realizes the pain Sam is in. But I think at first he's like, "yeah, this makes sense — mission is destroy Gadreel, this is part of the mission." And I think if he had just not even said anything to Sam about the possibility of being able to track Gadreel, none of this would have ever happened. I
don't know, that's the way I read it. I read it as Cass — like, obviously Sam's the one who's like, "no, keep going, keep doing it." Like,
once they get started, but it never gets started without Cass even just off-handedly mentioning the possibility of being able to track Gadreel with this grace. And then he witnesses — he's reaping what he's sowing, and he's like, "oh, I don't like this so much, I'm gonna back out."
Krissy Lenz:
Okay, that's not how I took it.
Nate McWhortor:
That's fine, I can see that — yes, Sam is obviously being a martyr, and he's pushing it, and he's like, "no, because I gotta balance the books, right, I've got all these cosmic debts I gotta pay,
because I'm a Winchester, and I gotta feel bad about myself and the decisions I've made in life." So — they talked about Dean and Crowley snooping and finding out that Cain had a wife, right? Did we talk about that? We talked about that.
Krissy Lenz:
Not yet, not yet, not yet, okay. So they snoop, they find a picture — "oh, this must be his wife." And then Cain gets back from his grocery trip and is like, "I told you guys to leave, you really dumb dumb dumb dumb dummies." And then, "oh look, the demons are here," and he's like, "you guys — now I gotta move, you know what the real estate market is like right now." Yeah, he's pissed.
Nate McWhortor:
Dean is like, "does the magic that's keeping us in keep them out?" And he's like, "yeah, for now." And he's like, "but I'm gonna go shuck some corn, see ya."
Krissy Lenz:
He's very concerned with his corn. He's very into his corn.
Nate McWhortor:
So we've got the demon gang outside, and they're like, "oh, we don't care about you, Cain, we just want the so-called King of Hell and Dean Winchester — we think bagging those will make nice for my master." He's like, "master?" And he's like, "Abaddon," says Crowley. Cut back to the bunker — more big needles.
Krissy Lenz:
More big needles. I was very uncomfortable with the whole thing.
Nate McWhortor:
So big, so many big needles. Cain's just gonna shuck corn while he watches Dean stab three demons — three demons for Dean, one for Crowley — and a great little fight scene in the house, with a couple pieces of broken furniture as well.
Krissy Lenz:
So much broken furniture — there is broken furniture left, right, and sideways.
Nate McWhortor:
Heavy drinkage in this section of the episode, sure. So — great fight scene, which ends with Dean stabbing this demon on the table right in front of Cain and looking him in the eye, and he flops the demon onto the ground, and he's like, "what is this?" So kind of testing — it's like, "I knew I felt connected to you right from the very beginning." Whew, man.
Uh — again, talk about brother themes — and he's like, "no, you and I aren't the same, you killed your brother." He's
like, "yeah, and you didn't. Why?" Right. I
love that. And this is where we learn that, according to Cain, it was not God that was talking to Abel, it was Lucifer. And the only reason Cain killed Abel was that he made a deal with Lucifer — his brother's soul in heaven for Cain's soul in hell,
and then that's how Cain becomes the first Knight of Hell, and the one who makes the Knights of Hell and leads them and does terrible atrocities for centuries — until he meets Colette. It's always a Colette. There's always a Colette. It's always a Colette. [inaudible] — because that would have been lame.
Krissy Lenz:
One day more.
Nate McWhortor:
So we learn that, yeah, Cain was a badass murderous Knight of Hell until he met this nice lady who was like, "yeah, I know what you are, but you could not be that, and that'd be cool too." And then he's like, "oh, that sounds great." And then he went and killed all the Knights of Hell, except for, apparently, Abaddon — who we then find in a — I don't — not a montage, I don't know why I wrote montage, I guess more flashback than montage.
Krissy Lenz:
It's a flashback, yeah. It's a flashback.
Nate McWhortor:
And we get a flashback to Cain's backstory — his beloved — but they came for him, and he had to go out and kill them, except then one took his wife, and of course that's Abaddon, and Abaddon's breaking his wife from the inside and escapes just before Cain can stab — oh no, now he's stabbed his wife, and now his wife is dead.
This is why Cain is retired, disappeared off the map, as Crowley told us earlier. Yeah, it's just a great — love the backstory, love the whole everything about it.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, it's great.
Nate McWhortor:
It really makes you feel for Cain. I like the different take on the Cain and Abel story too — like, he did it to protect his brother, he did it for — you could totally see Dean doing the same thing, right? Like Dean or Sam doing the same thing — although I don't think Sam would. I think Dean would. I don't think Sam could ever bring himself to stab his brother. But Dean, yeah. I don't know.
Krissy Lenz:
And his brother gets stabbed by a nail, and he just moves on pretty quickly. He does.
Nate McWhortor:
It's this interesting — and now we're gonna watch again — the connection between Dean and Cain is so interesting. Dean, Cain — also funny, just now thought of that. So we get a good Cass and Sam BM scene, because Cass has finally given up on his mission to get as much grace out of Sam as possible, because Sam is obviously not having a good time with it. But we get some more big needle, take a drink. And Cass is basically like, "well, I've healed you and gotten all the grace out of you, and if it's enough, it's enough, and if it's not, it's not." And guess what? It's
not. Cut back to Cain's place, where we learn about the Mark, take a drink. The Mark. The Blade — the First Blade is useless if you don't have the Mark. So the Blade isn't here, of course. But what the Blade draws its power from, which is the Mark — that's what the finding spell, whatever thing they did earlier, led them to. This — not the actual blade itself, but the Mark of Cain on him. We
take a drink for that. That is actually where we learn all of Cain's backstory with his wife and everything like that. More demons are arriving though, and things are getting kind of catastrophic. So what do we do? We gotta transfer the Mark. Cain transfers the Mark to Dean. Dean now bears it. Take a drink.
Krissy Lenz:
It's really gross too. Like, the transfer is gross. There's a lot of gross stuff in this episode. A lot of it had me cringing and grinding my teeth.
Nate McWhortor:
The big needle, the demon whose face is all shot off with a shotgun. Yeah, there's a bunch of gross stuff in this episode. This — just the Blade itself is gross, obviously.
Krissy Lenz:
The Blade itself is gross, and when it goes into Colette, it's disgusting.
Nate McWhortor:
Made from a cow's jawbone, as the legend goes, as the lore says. There's more big needle as we try to do the spell to find Gadreel, but of course it doesn't work. And Cass knew this the whole time that it wasn't gonna work, so he's just like, "well, I'd rather have my friend Sam around still than have found Gadreel, because I probably would have killed him getting enough grace."
Krissy Lenz:
Right.
Nate McWhortor:
Because he said in the beginning, "is it bad to have this grace?" And he's like, "well, it's not hurting —"
Krissy Lenz:
Right, right — it might be helping. Right. So we get this Cass and Sam melodrama scene, and this is then followed by a Crowley and Dean melodrama scene.
Nate McWhortor:
And we get — I love the banter between them — where Dean's like, "I saw you with that demon, you handled the undercard demon and didn't bother to come help out with the main event," and then Crowley's like, "oh, I was holding out for the prize fight" — all this boxing and wrestling lingo that's going on.
Right — I love his pop culture reference there, and basically Dean learns, yeah, Crowley's been kind of punking him the whole time. He knew everything about everything, even though he was playing nervous — no, he knew exactly how this was gonna go. So
now Dean has to reckon with that — he's just this pawn in Crowley's game, and now he bears this mark, and it's gonna make him go find the Blade. It's in the deepest part of the deepest ocean.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, he threw it into the ocean. And he says, "you can't search the ocean, but I can." How? How? How?
Nate McWhortor:
Well, he doesn't need to breathe.
Krissy Lenz:
Right. But he's gonna go walk the floor of the ocean.
Nate McWhortor:
With a flashlight? My thing is, how can you see down there? It's dark.
Krissy Lenz:
You're gonna get all bit up by lantern fish. Oh, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
You don't even know what's down there. But he also has a warehouse of Kraken essence in Belize, so — talking crowd here. Anyway, that's the episode. That's Season Nine, Episode Eleven, "First Born." Timothy Omundson is just absolutely captivating and amazing and mesmerizing, and kind of just steals the whole dang show. Like he probably should have.
Krissy Lenz:
Yes, he sure does.
Nate McWhortor:
Just everything, the way he talks and his demeanor — he'll say a line while crossing his leg and just — ah, he's so cool, calm, and collected. And I also love the take on Cain. I think it's a really fun take on who Cain is and the legend of Cain and everything like that. This episode, for me, is like a ten out of ten Supernatural episode. Must watch. Yeah, that's how I feel. Krissy, how did the rules play out?
Krissy Lenz:
Okay, the journal — just the once.
Nate McWhortor:
Just the once. But it's fine, it's good. You need a "just once" sometimes, and that's fine. The journal's the perfect one for that.
Krissy Lenz:
How many times did you get demon eyes?
Nate McWhortor:
Only four times, but I feel like it's more.
Krissy Lenz:
No, I got four too.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, perfect. Alright. How many pop culture references did you get?
Krissy Lenz:
I got five.
Nate McWhortor:
I got six.
Krissy Lenz:
I didn't count the wrestling one.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, undercard, prize fighting, the buddy comedy. I like when Crowley said, "I hope there's a montage in the buddy comedy."
Krissy Lenz:
I counted that.
Nate McWhortor:
Hunter's Hogwarts. Oh — when Crowley's like, or Dean's like, "oh, why don't you just zap out of here?" and he's like, "why would I leave my faithful companion behind?" and he's like, "oh yeah, like your heart grew three sizes."
Krissy Lenz:
Oh, I didn't count that one.
Nate McWhortor:
Grinch reference, yeah. And then the demonic AARP — yeah, I counted that one. How many devil's traps did you get?
Krissy Lenz:
Three.
Nate McWhortor:
I got three as well. And big needles — five?
Krissy Lenz:
I got seven.
Nate McWhortor:
I counted the picture of the big needle that they showed in the drawing in the book at the beginning, so that's one that I count.
Krissy Lenz:
Shoot, I must have missed that one.
Nate McWhortor:
I put two montages for the "then."
Krissy Lenz:
I put two montages, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Crowley saying "montage" — I can't —
Krissy Lenz:
I counted the montage of him cheating Dean at the end. Oh, true.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. How many broken furniture did you get? Three?
Krissy Lenz:
I got two.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, alright, we're right on track there. Demons stabbed — I got five.
Krissy Lenz:
I got seven.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh, how did I miss two?
Krissy Lenz:
Got the three at the beginning.
Nate McWhortor:
Right — I guess, does he stab those guys though? He smites them, yeah — he doesn't stab them. Yeah, true. Okay, so maybe not the three at the beginning, so maybe I'm at four. You said you got five —
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, obviously the four during the fight.
Nate McWhortor:
Right, and then I'm trying to think what the other one was.
Krissy Lenz:
I think he got five during the fight.
Nate McWhortor:
Five during the fight, because I thought Dean got three and Crowley got one. Because I think Dean got four.
Krissy Lenz:
You got four? Alright. And then the Mark — I saw twice.
Nate McWhortor:
I got five.
Krissy Lenz:
What? What did I do? I don't know, but I got five.
Nate McWhortor:
Well, then your game is a lot better than mine, because I missed some. I got thirty-three total drinks.
Krissy Lenz:
Ooh.
Nate McWhortor:
[inaudible — running tally read aloud] So we evened out. Yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
Alright, so what is up next? We're going a couple seasons later — Season Twelve, Episode Two, "Mamma Mia."
Nate McWhortor:
Here we go again. Here are your rules: Sam gets bizay, take a drink. Someone says "mom," "mommy," "mother," any variation on the theme "mommy," "mother" — take a drink. We get burned, take a drink. Take a drink if Cass doesn't get it — Cass just doesn't get it, he's
not on the same page as everyone else. Take a drink if someone calls Crowley "Fergus." As always, we're playing the Sammy rule — if
someone calls Sam "Sammy," take a drink and say "Sammy." Take a drink for a BM scene. Take a drink for a palm slice — you
know I love a palm slice. And take your shot — double your drink, finish your drink, waterfall — for Dean saying "son of a bitch." It's a shot this time, it's not just anything. Thank you so much for listening, thank you for being with us at the end. I'm gonna tell a crazy story at the end of this podcast — if you want to stick around, I'm gonna tell Nate about something that happened to me last night, and you might want to stick around. But before we do — Nate, tell the people where they can find us in the real world.
Nate McWhortor:
In the real world, you can find us at the Neighborhood Comedy Theatre in downtown Mesa, Arizona. We do shows on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, at various times. You can go to nctphoenix.com for those times and tickets and show information and all sorts of other things. You can find out about workshops that we teach and stuff. Yeah, that's the real world stuff.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, you can find me on the Most Excellent 80s Movies Podcast, where a filmmaker, a comedian, and their fabulous guests revisit the 80s movies we think we love — or might have missed — with these grown-up eyes, to see how they hold up. Also a product of TruStory FM. If you love the pod, please like, rate, review, subscribe, thumbs up, tell a friend, tell a neighbor, tell your local sullen guy who goes to the farmer's market and just might be a biblical father of murder.
Nate McWhortor:
[inaudible]
Krissy Lenz:
That corn looked delicious, though.
It did. It was so juicy. If you want even more, and you have a little money to throw around, go to TruStory.fm and sign up to be a member. You
get every episode early and ad-free, baby. Yeah. And as always, when you're out there in the world saving people and hunting things — you know, the family business — keep the Gank That Drank motto in mind. Be excellent to each other, and party on, dude.
Nate McWhortor:
So here's the crazy story that happened to me last night. Okay. I went to trivia with our mutual friend Bobby. Yes. And we're about two rounds in — not two rounds of drinks, two rounds of trivia.
To — not — but you're not at halftime yet.
Krissy Lenz:
So we're — no, we're not at halftime yet. We're about seven questions in. And I get up and go to the bathroom, and when I come out, Bobby is on the ground.
Nate McWhortor:
No. What?
Krissy Lenz:
He had passed the fuck out. He had completely gone unconscious and hit the ground.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh no.
Krissy Lenz:
So I come running out and I roll him over, and I'm like, "oh my god, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, wake up, wake up, wake up." He wakes up. He stays on the ground for a while. I finally get him into a chair, we get some water into him. Meanwhile, the bar has called the paramedics.
Nate McWhortor:
Of course — someone's passed out there, makes sense. Yep.
Krissy Lenz:
So the fire truck comes, the EMTs come pouring out, they're attaching wires to him, they're shaving his chest, they're giving him an IV. They're like, "what happened?" I'm telling them everything, and they're like, "well, his heart rate is forty" — that's low, that's alarmingly low.
Nate McWhortor:
That's quite low. Yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
So they're like, "we gotta take him to the hospital." Okay. So I have Bobby give me his keys, because he drove us there.
Nate McWhortor:
Uh-huh.
Krissy Lenz:
And they go off to the hospital in an ambulance, and I follow behind in Bobby's car.
Nate McWhortor:
I was so freaked out driving Bobby's car, because I don't know how it works, and he's a very tall guy and I'm a very small woman, so the mirrors are all messed up, and I'm adjusting everything and trying to turn the headlights on, and I'm driving over to the hospital.
Krissy Lenz:
I'm so freaked out. And there were all these guys behind me popping wheelies on motorcycles.
Nate McWhortor:
And I was like, "please, not right now."
Krissy Lenz:
Not tonight. The last thing I need is to get in a wreck in Bobby's car while I'm driving to the hospital. So we got there, and eventually — so I got there, and Dorian, my husband, I texted him, and he was like, "I'll be right there." So he came over, and we waited with Bobby until they said he was gonna be discharged, and then I went home and Dorian waited for him, and about an hour later he got to drive Bobby home in his car, and Dorian took an Uber home. And Bobby's okay — they said it was dehydration, probably just extreme dehydration, and drinking one beer just lit him up. Oh my god, like a goddamn Christmas tree.
Nate McWhortor:
This Arizona heat is no joke.
Krissy Lenz:
It's no joke, and he wasn't even out in the heat — he was home all day, but he just didn't drink enough water. So you need to drink water.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, no, I'm on my third water bottle of the day, trying to hydrate.
Krissy Lenz:
You need to stay safe out there.
Nate McWhortor:
That is crazy. I'm glad he's okay. I'm glad it was nothing serious.
Krissy Lenz:
Yeah, I'm super glad he's okay, I'm super glad it was nothing serious. I was so worried, I was so scared. It was quite an experience — and then as soon as the ambulance left, they started trivia again.
Nate McWhortor:
I was actually thinking trivia was going on in the background the whole time this was happening.
Krissy Lenz:
No, no, they held trivia the whole time the EMTs were there.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh, I'd feel terrible, I'd be like, "no, no, no, keep doing trivia, we need to win this thing, damn it." Yeah.
Krissy Lenz:
And we were doing really well too. Bummer, I forgot.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah, yeah, I should have come over there — well, I didn't even get done with my work meeting till seven.
Krissy Lenz:
Well, he could have come — he would have been there for the show. Wow.
Yeah, it was crazy. Alright, that was my fun story. Thanks for staying, super fans, we love you. And party on, dudes.
Nate McWhortor:
Party on.
