5.13 The Song Remains the Same

Title	The Song Remains the Same
Episode #	Season 5, Episode 13
First aired	February 4, 2010
Directed by	Steve Boyum
Written by	Sera Gamble Nancy Weiner
On IMDB	The Song Remains the Same
Outline	Anna goes back to 1978 to kill John and Mary Winchester, in order to stop Sam from ever being born.
Monster	Angels
Timeline	2010
Location(s)	Lawrence, Kansas
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Synopsis

Anna appears in Dean's dream and tells him she has been held prisoner and tortured in Heaven after Castiel turned her in, but has temporarily escaped. Because of the Enochian sigils on his ribs, she can't find him and urgently asks him to meet her. Castiel knows that you cannot escape Heaven's prison and goes to meet Anna in the brothers' place, knowing she must have been converted and released on a mission. Castiel, carrying the angel sword with him, and Anna meet up and she tells him that Sam must die to save the world. After her efforts to convince Castiel of her plans are unsuccessful, Anna is sent back in time to 1978 to kill Mary and John Winchester and prevent Sam from ever being born. Castiel and the boys follow after her to protect Mary and John, but the trip has some serious side effects on Castiel and they stash him in a motel room. Anna manages to lure John away by impersonating his boss on the phone, but he is saved by Dean, Mary and Sam, who send Anna away using the angel banishing sigil.

Sam and Dean explain the situation as best they can without revealing too much to their parents and take them up to Mary's parents' cabin. While preparing the house Dean and Sam tell Mary who they really are and that maybe their not being born could solve everything, so she should leave John. But Mary reveals that it's too late, that she's already pregnant with Dean.

They all end up going up against Anna and a young Uriel, whom Anna recruited, in a fight in which Sam is critically injured when Anna stabs him with a pipe she pulls out of a wall. John tries to help out as best as he can by allowing Michael, who has joined them, to possess him to save his wife. Michael kills Anna and sends the young Uriel back "home." He explains to Dean that the two brothers and their family line go all the way back to Cain and Abel and that what's coming must and will come. He says that Dean must agree to being his vessel when he time comes. As he leaves, Michael heals Sam and sends them back to the present and makes sure Mary and John will not remember any of the events of the day so that Dean and Sam Winchester are born.

Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Young Mary Winchester
• Young John Winchester
• Castiel
• Anna
• Michael
• Uriel

Definitions

• Vessel
• Angel Sword
• Angel Banishing Sigil
• Holy Oil
• Devil's trap
• Darling Sammy
• Team Free Will
• Cain and Abel

Music

• "Cherry Pie" by Warrant

(plays during Dean’s dream of strippers)

• "The Creeper" by Molly Hatchet

(plays when Anna lands in 1978)

Quotes

Dean: [After Anna shows up in his stripper dream] Anna! I was just... uh... workin' on a case.

Anna: ...This is what you dream about?

Dean: This is awkward.

Castiel: The answer is still no, because Sam is my friend.

Dean: So what, you're like a DeLorean without enough plutonium?
Castiel: I don't understand that reference.

Dean: He’s tough for a little nerdy dude with wings.

Dean: This is it.

Sam: This is what?

Dean: Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with 6 bucks to his name, and Mr. Comatose over there. Awesome.

Trivia & References

Warrant's "Cherry Pie" is probably Dean's favorite stripper song as he mentions it once in 4.14 Sex and Violence.

The episode title “The Song Remains the Same” is a song by Led Zeppelin from the Houses of the Holy album.

Jensen Ackles also starred in a Dawson's Creek episode titled "The Song Remains the Same."

The car Anna lands on is parked near an advertisement for Grease starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The movie was released on June 16th, 1978.

Dean: [about Anna] So she’s gone all Glenn Close?

Castiel: Who’s Glenn Close?
Dean: No-one... just this psycho bitch who likes to boil rabbits.

Glenn Close played Alex Forrest in the film Fatal Attraction. In the movie, she becomes psychotically vindictive after a fling with Michael Douglas. In one scene, she breaks into the family home and leaves a boiling pot on the stove containing the family’s pet rabbit. The term “bunny boiler” became slang for someone obsessed with an ex-lover.

Dean: So you’re like a DeLorean without enough plutonium?

A DeLorean was the vehicle used as a time machine in the Back to the Future movies.

Dean: What do I look like? Dr. Angel, Medicine Woman?

A reference to the show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman starring Jane Seymour (who Jensen also appeared with in Smallville), in which she played a doctor in the Old West.

Dean: What are we going to tell them?

Sam: The truth?
Dean: What? That their sons are back from the future to save them from an angel that’s gone terminator? Come on, those movies haven’t even been made yet.

In the movie The Terminator, the eponymous cyborg travels back in time to kill Sarah Connor so that her son John Connor will never be born.In Back to the Future - another movie about time travel - a teenager from 1985 travels to 1955 and meets his parents. Dean is referring to the fact this episode takes place in 1978. The Terminator was released in 1984, and Back to the Future was released in 1985.

Dean: Six degrees of heaven bacon

A reference to the idea of Six Degrees of Separation, that through connections with other people, everyone in the world is only six people away from each other. This grew into the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon which posited that all actors could be connected through actors they had appeared in movies with to Kevin Bacon.

See also Six Degrees of Jensen Ackles.

Mary: It's okay, it's all okay. Angels are watching over you.

In the final scene, Mary has bought a ceramic angel to put by Dean’s crib. In 2.13 Houses of the Holy, Dean tells Sam that Mary "used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me." Also in 2.20 What Is and What Should Never Be when Dean first sees Mary, he checks to see if she is real by asking her to tell him what she would always say when she tucked him in at night. She answers, "I told you angels were watching over you."

This and 1.01 Pilot are the only episodes in which all four Winchesters (John, Mary, Dean and Sam) appear together in the same scene.

Anna impersonates John's boss over the phone to lure him for the kill. This is a technique used by Terminators in the first two movies.

Minutiae

In 1978, Dean checks the injured Castiel into the honeymoon suite at The Prairie Court Motel.

John and Mary live at 485 Robintree.

The original title of the episode was "Back to the Future II," and iTunes still lists the episode under this title.

Mary’s favorite Beatles song was “Hey Jude,” and she would sing that to Dean as a lullaby.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 5.13 The Song Remains the Same (Transcript)

Promotion

• Plot spoiler from Kristin
• Episode titles 5.11-5.16 from spoiler tv
• Promo pics from 5.13
• Official synopsis from spnsite
• Comments from Sera Gamble on this episode (spoilers thru to 5.17 in interview)
• Vague plot spoiler from Kristin
• Promo clip
• Preview clip 1
• Preview clip 2
• Episode name change
• Space TV clip