13.05 Advanced Thanatology

Title	Advanced Thanatology
Episode #	Season 13, Episode 5
First aired	November 9, 2017
Directed by	John F. Showalter
Written by	Steve Yockey
On IMDB	Advanced Thanatology
Outline
Monster	Ghost
Timeline
Location(s)	Grand Junction, Colorado Lebanon, Kansas
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Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Castiel
• Billie
• Dr. Avery Meadows
• Jessica
• Shawn Raider

Definitions

• Alcohol
• Aliases
• Costumes & Disguises
• Death
• Death's Reading Room
• Death's Scythe
• Ectoplasm
• EMF
• Ghost
• Impala
• Iron
• Men of Letters Bunker
• Possession
• Reapers
• Salt
• Teleportation
• The Veil

Music

• "It's Never Too Late" by Steppenwolf

(playing over the closing montage)

Quotes

Dean: What is that a monster? Is this the one you told the cops about? You know, I know what it's like to see monsters, and I know that when they're gone, they never really go away. You see 'em when you close your eyes, you see 'em in your dreams. But you know what? Me and my brother, we're the guys that stop the monsters, we're the ones that scare them. But you gotta talk to me.

Sam: So, strip club?

Dean: Wait. Sorry what?
Sam: Strip... club. There's one just outside of town, the, um, Clam Diver.
Dean: You wanna go to the Clam Diver?
Sam: Yeah, it got great reviews.
Dean: You read reviews for the Clam Diver?

Sam: Yeah, it got four...

Dean: Dude, the last lap dance you had was -- was at Christmas, it was a gift paid for by me. You spent the entire song trying to convince the girl she should go to nursing school

Dean: I'm Fine.

Sam: Look you're not, Dean. You said you don't believe in anything, and -- and that's not true, that's not you. You do believe in things, you believe in people. That's who you are, that's what you do. I know you're in a dark place and I just want to help.
Dean: Okay. Look, I've been down this road before and I fought my way back, I will fight my way back again.
Sam: How?

Dean: Same way I always do: bullets, bacon and booze. A lot of booze.

Dean: So, you died to become Death.
Billie: This Universe can be so many things, and sometimes it is poetic. That's why we need to talk.

Dean: Why do you care?

Billie: Because I do. Because this whole multiversal, quantum construct we live in. It's like a house of cards and the last thing I need is some big, dumb Winchester knocking it all down.

Dean: That does sound like us.

Billie: That doesn't sound like the Dean Winchester I know and love. The man who's been dead so many times, but it never seemed to stick. Maybe you're not that guy anymore, the guy who saves the world, the guy who always thinks he'll win no matter what. You have changed, and you tell people its not a big deal. You tell people you'll work through it, but you know you wont, you cant and that scares the hell out of you or am I wrong?

Dean: What do you want me to say? It doesn't matter, I don't matter.

Billie: Don't you?
Dean: I couldn't save Mom. I couldn't save Cas. I can't even save a scared little kid. Sam keeps trying to fix it, but I just keep dragging him down. So I'm not gonna beg, okay. If it's my time, it's my time.
Billie: You really believe that. You wanna die. Dean every note book on this particular shelf tells a version of how you die. You specifically. Heart attack, burned by a red-haired witch, stabbed by a ghoul in a graveyard and on and on. But which one's right? That depends on you. On the choices you make.

Dean: Well I guess I made my choice.

Sam: You okay?

Dean: No. Sam I'm not okay, I'm pretty far from okay. You know my whole life, I always believed that what we do WAs important. No matter what the cost, no matter who we lost. Whether it was Dad or Bobby or... and I would take the hit. But I kept on fighting because I believed that we were making the world a better place. And now Mom and Cas and I -- I don't know. I don't know.
Sam: So you don't believe anymore.

Dean: I just need a win. I just need a damn win.

Trivia & References

Thantology is the scientific study of death.

Dean: What about Jack?

Sam: He's, uh, he's catching up on all my old fantasy DVDs. Red Sonja, Beastmaster, uh Beastmaster 2, you know the one with the time travelling ferrets.
Dean: How you ever got laid, I'll never know.

Red Sonja is a fantasy movie based on the eponymous Marvel comics character who is a barbarian warrior.Beastmaster and Beastermaster 2 are fantasy films about a warrior, Dar, who can communicate with animals. In the second film he travels forward in time with his companion who include the ferrets called Kodo and Podo.

Dean and Sam use the aliases "Agents Page and Plant." Referencing Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and lead singer Robert Plant.

Dean: What's up with the creepy-ass mask?

Sam: It's a plague mask, doctors used to use them they thought they filtered out disease. As a matter of fact, when they arrested Meadows he was wearing one and they had to hold him down to rip it off.

Dean: What's up, doc?

This is the catch phrase of the Warner Brothers cartoon character Bugs Bunny.

Dean: Look we can't talk to them on this side of the Veil. So I'm gonna go to the other side, I'm gonna work my way through all these Caspers until we find out where this freak hid the bodies.

Casper is the title character in the famous cartoon series Casper, the Friendly Ghost. The Winchesters have referred to ghosts as Casper or Caspers on previous occasions.

Dean: No, I saw Cas kill you.

Billie: How's that working out for him? It's funny to hear a Winchester talk about the finality of dying. This realty, it has rules, Dean. So many rules. And one of them: kill one incarnation of Death, like you did. The next reaper to die, takes his place. So, when Castiel stabbed me in the back, turns out I got a promotion. New job. New gear.

Billie taking on Death's mantle is a slight twist on the plot to the 1983 fantasy novel On a Pale Horse, in which the main character, Zane, kills Death and is forced to take the mantle on himself.

Dean: Lucifer's son, Jack, when he was born he created a little rip.

Billie: A little rip? Into another world and you went there?
Dean: Yeah, I'll just say it's, uh, it's not Candy Land.

Candly Lan features in the board game of the same name, and is a land made of candy and confectionary.

Death's various notebooks on the way Dean bears some similarity to the manga/anime Death Note, where shinigami, gods of death, write down the names of people and their deaths in their own personal Death Note books.

Minutiae

Billie: Since I got this new job. I stand witness to a much larger picture. Do you know what I see? You and your brother. You're important.

Dean: Why?
Billie: You have work to do. That's all you need to know. And trust me, having my eyes open to the necessity of any humans especially Winchesters is not a thrill. So, you wanna die. But I say, keep living.

At the end of the pilot, there is a shot of Dean and Sam standing over the trunk of the Impala. As Sam tosses a weapon into he trunk he says, "We've got work to do" and closes the trunk. At the end of 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two, the scene is replayed with the brother's positions reversed. Dean tosses the Colt into the trunk and says, "We've got work to do." In 4.01 Lazarus Rising, when Dean asks Castiel why he was brought back, Castiel responds, "Because we have work for you." In 7.19 Of Grave Importance the line is used by Bobby to explain his presence as a ghost. It is also re-created at the start of 10.05 Fan Fiction after Dean announces he has found a case.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 13.05 Advanced Thantology (transcript)

Promotion

• Promo
• Sneak Peak