Donna's Cabin

Sheriff Donna Hanscum has a cabin that is about "half a day's drive" from the Men of Letters Bunker, in Hibbing, Minnesota. The key is kept under a garden gnome. There's a shed on the property too.

Episodes

14.05 Nightmare Logic

After Bobby from Apocalypse World is badly injured during a hunt and is faced with his unresolved grief over his son's death, he reveals to Mary that he has been throwing himself into hunting with a death wish. Sam contacts Donna, and arranges for Mary and Bobby to spend some time at her cabin.

14.11 Damaged Goods

When Bobby leaves the cabin to get some space to deal with his grief, Mary is left alone at Donna's cabin. There, she gets a call from Dean who tells her that he's coming to visit for some one-on-one time.

When Dean gets to the cabin, he finds Mary using pumpkins for shooting practice. Dean tells her that he plans to stick around for a few days, and Mary is pleased to have him, telling him that there's a pull-out bed for him on the couch. Mary then suggests they invite Sam up, but Dean is adamant that he doesn't want Sam around. Dean then announces that he's hungry and Mary comments that the food delivery options are scarce in rural Minnesota. However, Dean manages to persuade her to go to a local store and buy the ingredients for Winchester Surprise along with some pie.

As soon as Mary is gone, Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, takes out his duffel bag full of DIY equipment and lore books, and heads toward the shed on the property. He flicks on a light and looks around the shed which has all the usual amenities complete with posters of mustached men. Despite Michael banging on the stockroom door in his mind, Dean manages to turn on some music on a cassette tape player and get to work.

After much building, Dean leaves the shed just as Mary gets back. He helps her inside with the groceries, brushing off her question as to what he was doing. Inside, Dean has already set the table and prepared the kitchen for cooking. He tells Mary that he wants to help her make Winchester Surprise.

As Dean takes the Winchester Surprise out of the oven wearing oven mitts, Mary sneaks off to call Sam who insists on coming to the cabin since he thinks Dean is up to something. Mary asks him to give her time to talk to Dean alone.

When they sit down opposite each other at the dining table to eat, Dean begins telling Mary a story from his childhood where Sam had went to get Winchester Surprise ingredients. Dean tells her he had put a bunch of bologna and sliced cheese on a hot plate and stunk up the motel room so bad that John had been angry when he'd returned, throwing the food in the trash. Dean posits that this was because Dean's haphazard cooking endeavor had reminded him of Mary. Mary admits feeling guilty over what Sam and Dean had to go through, but Dean insists that having her here now is what matters to him. Her conversation with Sam earlier still on her mind, Mary gently reminds Dean that he can talk to her if he's going through something. To this, Dean stresses that he doesn't want to talk about how he's doing.

Later that night, as Dean is sleeping, Mary creeps out into the shed and discovers what her son has been building. When she leaves the shed to go confront Dean, Nick appears and kidnaps her.

Dean, asleep on the couch, is awakened by a phonecall from Donna. She informs him that Nick is after Mary. Dean immediately rushes out of the cabin. When he's outside, a rustling startles him, and he turns, aiming his gun straight at Sam. Sam calms Dean, asking what's going on. Dean tells him that their mother is gone.

Donna arrives to the cabin soon after and tells them she managed to get Nick's plates. She apologizes for having allowed him to get away, but Dean assures her that it isn't her fault. Sam chimes in that it's actually his fault—citing that he was the one who had let Nick leave, believing he was just going home. Suddenly, Donna's radio crackles and she's informed that a traffic cam had just spotted Nick's van pulling up outside a storage facility outside Grand Rapids. Dean asks how far Grand Rapids is from where they are, and Donna tells him, "30, 40 minutes." They all head out.

After successfully finding and getting Nick arrested, and after an ultimatum from Mary, Dean comes clean to Sam and shows him the ma'lak box he'd been building in Donna's shed. He explains his plan—to lock himself inside the box, charter a boat to take the box out to the Pacific ocean and be thrown in, forever keeping Michael at bay. Sam calls the plan "insane", but Dean tells Sam that it's the only choice he has in order to keep Michael from destroying their world. Sam continues to push, believing there has to be another way. However, Dean explains that Billie had told him that this is the only way to stop Michael and had given him the blueprints for the box. Sam is upset that Dean had planned to say goodbye to everyone but him, but Dean reveals that he couldn't have Sam there because Sam is the only one who might've been able to talk him out of it. Dean is adamant that he won't be talked out of his plan and that Sam can either leave him alone to do it, or help him. Sam reluctantly agrees to help his brother.

Trivia

• In an exchange with fans on Twitter, writer of 14.05 Nightmare Logic, Meredith Glynn, declared that the idea that Donna had 800 garden gnomes at the cabin was the canon of her heart.
• Inside Donna's cabin, the deer's head and a gray version of the braided rug can be seen.