2.11 Playthings
Promotional image for Playthings | |
Title | Playthings |
Episode # | Season 2, Episode 11 |
First aired | January 18, 2007 |
Directed by | Charles Beeson |
Written by | Matt Witten |
On IMDB | http://imdb.com/title/tt0890836/ |
Outline | |
Monster | |
Timeline | |
Location(s) | Pierpont Hotel |
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Contents
Synopsis
Sam and Dean investigate a series of mysterious deaths at the Pierpont Hotel. The hotel is run by a single mother (Susan) who is planning to sell the hotel. Also living at the hotel is the manager's young daughter (Tyler), Susan's mother (Rose), and the elderly bellboy (Sherman). Tyler has an imaginary friend named Maggie.
While they are there, another murder causes Sam intense guilt, and he gets drunk and makes Dean promise to fulfil John's final order - to kill Sam should he turn evil.
While investigating, Sam and Dean at first suspect Rose of engineering the murders using Voodoo, after discovering voodoo symbols on the property and evidence that she had come in contact with such folklore. However, when they sneak into the upper levels of the hotel to speak with Rose, they discover she has suffered from a stroke and therefore doesn't possess the faculties to practice Voodoo. Discovering Sam and Dean in her mother's room, Susan demands they leave the hotel.
Sam and Dean return to the hotel in secret, however, saving Susan's life and convincing her there is something supernatural going on when she nearly becomes a victim herself. They discover that Maggie is in fact a ghost of Susan's aunt, Margaret, who drowned in the hotel's pool when she was a girl. The mysterious deaths started occuring when Rose had a stroke, and thus was no longer able to keep Maggie's ghost from the hotel using Voodoo protection.
Maggie's motives appear to be that she doesn't want the family to leave the hotel, as it means she will no longer have Tyler as a play mate, and to keep Tyler with her together, attempts to drown Tyler in the hotel's swimming pool. Before she can complete the murder, Maggie is called away from the pool by Rose, who trades her life for Tyler's, offering instead to stay and be a ghost also and playmate for her sister instead.
Sam rescues Tyler from the pool, and shortly thereafter they discover Rose dead, having made the deal with Maggie.
Characters
- Dean Winchester
- Sam Winchester
- Tyler (girl)
- Maggie (ghost girl)
- Rose (grandmother)
- Susan (mother)
- Sherman (bell boy)
Music
Pad of Definitions
Additional definitions provided by fans
References
- There are multiple references to The Shining throughout the episode. Dean and Sam stay in room 237, the low tracking throughout the hotel's halls are redolent of similar cinematography, and the scene in which Dean wanders into the hotel bar to talk to Sherman is reminiscent of a scene in the film.
- Many of the low tracking shots of the hotel's halls are reminiscent of cinematography used in The Shining
- MILF
- Scooby Doo (with Dean's reference to Fred and Daphne)
- The cinematography used in the scenes involving Rose (the grandmother) in the upper storey of the hotel is highly reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"