11.02 Form and Void

Title	Form and Void
Episode #	Season 11, Episode 2
First aired	October 14, 2015
Directed by	Phil Sgriccia
Written by	Andrew Dabb
On IMDB	Form and Void
Outline	While Sam continues to deal with the "rabids" situation and his own deteriorating state, Dean is called back by Jenna when baby Amara begins exhibiting dangerous traits.
Monster	The Darkness Rabids
Timeline	Immediately after 11.01 Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire
Location(s)	Superior, Nebraska Cedar Rapids, Iowa
« Previous Episode | Next Episode »

Synopsis

In Superior, Nebraska, Sam raids an abandoned hardware store and builds himself a taser. He uses it to capture another infected person, and he takes him back to the hospital, where he handcuffs him to a bed. He questions the man and attempts to learn more about the rabid virus, to try and find a cure.

Meanwhile, Castiel, who is still suffering the effects of Rowena's attack dog spell, has been captured by the angels Efram and Jonah. They have tied him up, and are torturing him for information on Metatron's whereabouts. Castiel tries to tell them that he doesn't know where Metatron is, but the angels don't believe him. After leaving Deputy Jenna Nickerson and baby Amara at Jenna's grandmother's house, Dean heads back toward the hospital in Superior where Sam is dealing with the rabids. However, when he gets a call from Jenna about how Amara is able to make objects fly, he turns the Impala around and returns to help her.

Back at the hospital in Superior, Sam has not been having much luck - the man he had taken prisoner lies dead on the floor, having succumbed to the infection. He continues to search for a cure, when suddenly, he hears a woman's voice singing. Grabbing his gun, he goes to investigate and finds that the voice belongs to a reaper. She tells him she has a message for him - that with Death now gone, the times of Sam and Dean dying and then coming back to life are over. If one of them dies now, the reapers will toss them into what she calls the Empty, and no one comes back from there. She then adds that she knows that he is dying, and that he is unclean, in the Biblical sense. As she leaves, she reveals her name is Billie.

The angels continue to torture Castiel until Hannah arrives, who tells them "Enough!" and to get out. The others leave and Castiel and Hannah are left alone. As Sam's rabid infection worsens, he goes to the hospital's chapel to pray to God for help, and to give him a sign. Afterward, he experiences several visions of himself being tortured. Shaken, he yells out in exasperation, "What does that mean?" Dean arrives back at Jenna's and is surprised to find Crowley there, posing as a priest.

Hannah goes to unchain Castiel but he tells her to leave them on, saying that it's safer that way. Castiel asks if she can heal him and remove the curse, but she is unable to. Castiel tells her that the spell is affecting him deeper and deeper, even though he is doing his best to fight it. Hannah asks if that has anything to do with the events in Superior. He is surprised that Hannah knows about it, and she tells him that alarms have gone off - alarms that hadn't gone off in years. Castiel tells her that the alarms are for the Darkness - that the Darkness has been released. Hannah wants to know where the Darkness is, and then realizes that the Winchesters are the ones who would likely know. She demands that Castiel tell her where she can find them. He doesn't know, and starts to become suspicious about her questioning. He figures out that the whole thing was a setup, with Hannah coming in to "save" him from Efram and Jonah. The plan was that Castiel would be grateful enough that he would then tell Hannah all that the angels wanted to know. Efram and Jonah return, and when Castiel still refuses to give up the Winchesters' location, they shrug it off and tell him that it doesn't matter, because they'll just hack into his brain with torture.

Dean and Crowley go outside to talk. Dean asks if he thinks there is a demon, and Crowley replies, "Not even a little bit." Whatever is in that house is very powerful, so powerful that Crowley can feel it radiating from within. They hear a scream and run back inside to find Jenna's grandmother dead on the floor.

Efram and Jonah continue to torture Castiel until Hannah tries to stop them, unable to watch anymore. They get into a fight, and as they beat Hannah, Castiel manages to escape from the chair and kills one of the angels. Before he can get to the other one, Hannah is stabbed and killed. He and the remaining angel fight, ending with Castiel stabbing him.

Sam's condition has started to deteriorate rapidly, and as his vision blurs and he struggles to remain upright, he remembers the words Billie said - that he was Biblically unclean. As a last resort, he looks up Biblical purification, and finds that it can be done with burning holy oil. Stumbling over to the duffel bag he pulls out the holy oil and soaks a piece of gauze in it. He then lights the gauze on fire and uses tongs to hold it up to the black veins which have crawled their way up his neck. To his great relief and astonishment, they disappear and he is cured. Sam comes up with a plan to cure all of the rabids, and starts luring them into holy fire traps, curing them.

Dean and Crowley find Amara in a crib, and when Dean goes in for a closer look, he realizes that she has the Mark of Cain on her shoulder. They look for Jenna and find her in her grandmother's room. She is different, and Crowley reveals that she no longer has a soul. She attacks Dean, and they fight, until Crowley kills her. Dean tells Crowley that he thinks Amara is the Darkness, and they argue, which ends with Dean pinning Crowley to the wall by stabbing an angel blade through his hand. He goes back to where he'd left Amara, but she has disappeared, as has Crowley.

The brothers return to the Bunker where they find Castiel on the floor in a terrible state, pleading with them for help. Meanwhile, on a street somewhere, Amara, who has grown into a child, is seen walking along a sidewalk wearing a pink dress. A black van pulls up next to her. Crowley gets out, opens the sliding door to reveal a kidnapped family, and asks her if she would like some "candy". Her face breaks out into a smile.

Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Castiel
• Crowley
• Hannah
• Deputy Jenna Nickerson
• Amara
• Efram
• Jonah
• Billie
• George

Definitions

• Angel Blade
• Angel Cuffs
• The Darkness
• Deities
• The Empty
• Holy Oil
• Impala
• Law Enforcement Officers
• Mark of Cain
• Men of Letters Bunker
• Mind Hacking
• Rabids
• Reaper
• Ruby's Knife
• Soul
• Spells
• Table of Death

Music

• "O Death" by Lisa Berry

(sung by the reaper Billie)

• "Sugar Shack" by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs

(playing in the hospital as Sam lures the rabids to the chapel)

Quotes

Dean: Nice neighborhood.

Jenna: Yeah, I pretty much grew up here. Learned to ride my bike down the road, had my first kiss at that blue house over there, lost my virginity up there.
Dean: I'll bet blue house was pissed.

Jenna: She was.

Jenna: What about you and Sam, are you gonna be okay?
Dean: Well for us the bar is pretty low, heh.

Sam: So you thinkin' demon?

Dean: Or the kid got infected by something, you know, who knows what was in that giant crazy fart?

Sam: Wow. Vivid, thanks.

Billie: It's over.

Sam: What's over?

Billie: You and Dean dying and coming back again and again. The old Death thought it was funny, but now there is one hard fast rule in this universe. What lives, dies. So the next time you or your brother bite it. Well, you're not going to Heaven or Hell; one of us, and Lord I hope it's me, we're gonna make a mistake and toss you out into the Empty. And nothing comes back from that. I know you're dying, I can feel it. You're unclean, in the Biblical sense. So I'll be seeing you again Sam, seeing you real soon. Name's Billie by the way.

Sam: So, I know it's been a long time but... Dean and I, we've been through a lot of bad, but this is different. This is my fault, and I don't know how to fix it. And if I have to die, I've made my peace with that, but please Dean deserves better. Dean deserves a life. There are people out there, good people... who are going to suffer because of me, and I'm not asking you to clean up my mess. Hell I don't even know you're out there, but if you are, and if you can hear me, I-we need your help God. We need to know there's hope, we need a sign.

Dean: Really? Father Crowley? Really?
Crowley: I'm sorry 'agent pathetic has-been rock star,' did I offend your delicate sensibilities? Where have you been? Your brother and that idiot angel, do you know what they have been doing?

Castiel: The Darkness. It's been locked away since the dawn of creation, and now it's free.

Hannah: God help us.

Castiel: I wouldn't count on it.

Crowley: Whatever's in that house, I can taste the power radiating from it. That thing. It's old. Deep. Dark.

Crowley: Oh Dean. Adorable little Dean. I want that child, and I get what I want. You and Sam don't understand, I'm not your bloody sidekick! We've had some good times, so I'm gonna give you one chance. Just one to walk out that door, or I'm gonna take you apart, atom by atom. Do you understand?

Sam: Weird.
Dean: Yeah, weird with a weird cherry on a weird top. We gotta get a maid. You know, one with a little uniform and really big . . . .

Trivia & References

The episode title "Form and Void" is a reference to Genesis 1:2, on the state of nature before creation:

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

The film Sam uses to lure the rabid George into the alley was The Night of the Hunter. In the scene the Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) tells the story of good and evil, as symbolized by the "love" and "hate" tattoos on his right and left fingers respectively. In his story he makes reference to Cain striking down Abel with his left hand (hate). You can watch the scene here.

Castiel: I asked for help.

Efram: And I asked for a vessel without psoriasis. Crap happens.

Psoriasis is a skin condition that causes a scaly rash.

Barb: Well who are we gonna call?

Dean: Ghostbusters. Jenna, hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. What's wrong?

"Who ya gonna call?" is the catchphrase from the 1986 comedy Ghost Busters.

Sam: I mean it sounds like something out of The Exorcist.

Based on the book by William Peter Blatty, the 1973 movie The Exorcist is about the demonic possession of a young girl, played by Linda Blair. Linda has also appeared as Detective Diana Ballard in 2.07 The Usual Suspects.

Dean: How you doin'? How's Zombieland?

Zombieland is a 2009 comedy zombie movie.

Sam: Who are you?

Billie: Think you mean what? Here's a hint. You and your brother been real good for business lately.
Sam: You're a reaper.
Billie: The circle gets the square.

"Circle gets the square" was a phrase commonly used on the game show Hollywood Squares.

The Biblical verses Sam looks up are:

Mark 9:49:

"Everyone will be purified by fire as a sacrifice is purified by salt."

Psalm 89:20:

"I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him."

The scene in which Efram and Castiel are fighting with angel blades is very reminiscent of the switchblade scene in the iconic 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean. In the scene, Dean's character, Jim, starts a knife fight with another high school student, and like Cas, he is wearing a white dress shirt covered in blood and black slacks. The fighting moves that Efram and Castiel use are very similar as are the taunts. Watch the scene here.

Dean: Listen Velma, this isn't the Scooby gang, okay. So either shut up or get out.

Crowley: Easy tiger, just trying to help... I'm way more of a Daphne.

In the cartoon series Scooby-Doo, Velma was the brainy member of the gang, while Daphne was the pretty, ditzy one who often had to be rescued.

Minutiae

The vision Sam had was likely of his time in Lucifer's Cage in Hell. Dean was also seen strung up by chains when he was in Hell in 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked. Also, in 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum, Ruby tells Dean Hell is a lot like Hellraiser "except for all the custom leather." Hellraiser was a 1987 horror movie, based on the novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker. A motif of the Hellraiser series is of characters being strung up and ripped apart by chains.

Billie's rendition of "O Death" can be seen as a sort of elegy (funeral song) for Death in the wake of his demise.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 11.02 Form and Void (transcript)

Promotion

• Synopsis
• Photos by The TV Addict
• Promo
• CHCH Promo
• Producer's Preview