6.09 Clap Your Hands If You Believe...

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Clap your hands if you believe promo.jpg
Title Clap Your Hands If You Believe...
Episode # Season 6, Episode 9
First aired November 19, 2010
Directed by John Showalter
Written by Ben Edlund
On IMDB Clap Your Hands If You Believe
Outline While Sam and Dean are investigating a UFO sighting, Dean is abducted from a crop circle. However, after he escapes, the brothers discover they aren't dealing with aliens, but fairies!
Monster Fairies, The Leprechaun
Timeline
Location(s) Elwood, Indiana
[[{{{prevep}}}|« Previous Episode]] | [[{{{nextep}}}|Next Episode »]]

Synopsis

Dean and Sam go to Elwood, Indiana to investigate the disappearances of four people. Due to reports of crop circles and bright lights in the sky, rumors have spread that the disappearances are the work of aliens. Dean and Sam go to visit a watchmaker, Mr. Brennan, who is the father of the first abductee, Patrick Brennan. He acts strange, so Sam stays in the city to watch him while Dean goes out to the cornfield that Patrick disappeared from.

While in the field, Dean gets a call from Sam. Sam tells him that he hasn't seen Mr. Brennan do anything suspicious just as Dean sees a bright light in the sky. Dean, still on the phone, starts running through the corn and screaming about UFOs and close encounters, but he is unable to escape and disappears in a flash of light. Sam goes to investigate the scene of Patrick, and now Dean's, disappearance and finds only Dean's cell phone on the ground. His next stop is the UFO follower camp--a collective of RVs and trailers covered in alien paraphernalia that has Wayne Whittaker, a famous UFO chaser, at its center. Sam goes up to Wayne and asks him how to hunt the aliens, but is disgusted when all Wayne can give him are pages and pages of useless interviews with people who have had close encounters. He tells Wayne that he sucks at hunting UFOs and leaves with a young woman, Sparrow Jennings, who seems interested in him and the story of his brother's disappearance.

Hours later, Dean reappears in the field in a flash of light, knife and gun brandished. He heads back to their motel and finds Sam and Sparrow in bed together. Dean thinks he's only been gone an hour and is upset that Sam was having sex instead of out looking for him, but Sam tells him that it's 4am and that Dean has been gone all night. After his abduction, they seem convinced that aliens are at the center of Elwood's disappearances. Sam researches them at the library while Dean stays at the motel and checks sources online. Dean's alone when the door to the motel bursts open and a "little, glowing, hot, naked lady" flies in and starts hitting him. He traps her in the microwave and cooks her, but when he tries to show Sam her remains, Sam can't see them. Sam puts together the clues and determines that all of the recent UFO encounters were actually the cause of Fairies.

Dean and Sam go to visit Marion, a woman they interviewed earlier who had said that fairies were behind the disappearances. She tells them all about fairies, including that they like cream and that they must count every grain of salt or sugar that is spilled in front of them. After they leave, they see Mr. Brennan loading boxes of cream into his car. Dean breaks into his shop and sees elves working on watches for him. He tells Sam, who confronts Mr. Brennan and learns that the man summoned a Leprechaun and tried to make a deal with him to save his watchmaking business. Unfortunately, the consequences were the kidnapping of his and then other firstborn sons in the city. Sam resolves to help Mr. Brennan reverse the ritual he used to summon the leprechaun.

Meanwhile, Dean is being stalked by a fairy, a Red Cap in particular, and he mistakenly tackles a little person and is arrested for a hate crime. He is in jail when Sam and Mr. Brennan go to the shop to get what they need to banish the fairies. Mr. Brennan starts to read the ritual, but is killed by Wayne Whittaker, who is actually the leprechaun that Mr. Brennan made his deal with. The leprechaun then tries to make a deal with Sam to give him his soul back, but Sam refuses. They fight until Sam spills salt in front of him, and he is forced to start counting the grains. Sam then reads the ritual and all of the fairies are banished back to their realm. Dean, who was being beaten by the Red Cap in his jail cell, is saved in time and is released from jail the next morning. The little person, who was also the district attorney for Tipton county, dropped the charges against him.

Characters

Definitions

Music

  • David Bowie - Space Oddity plays when Dean and the fairy face off

The opening credits featured music similar to the music in the The X-Files opening. The scene in the UFO followers camp was a shout-out to the musical signature from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Quotes

Sam: (to Marion) If you want to add glitter to that glue you're sniffing, that's fine, but don't dump your whackadoo all over us. We'd rather not step in it.

Dean: Okay, we're done.
Sam: Only thing you're missing is a couple dozen cats, sister.

Dean: Yeah, it's a blood sugar thing. My apologies.
Dean: Empathy man, empathy. I mean, the old Sam would have given her some wussified, dewey-eyed crap.
Sparrow: Your brother was abducted?

Sam: Yeah.
Sparrow: Oh my God!
Sam: It's fine. I mean, I've had time to adjust.
Sparrow: Did it happen when you were kids?

Sam: No, like half an hour ago.
Sam: So, you've been hunting UFOs for over three decades and you basically have no concrete data and zero workable leads.

Wayne: Well, I...

Sam: Have you considered the possibility that you suck at hunting UFOs?
Dean: They were grabby, incandescent douchebags!
Dean: I was abducted, and you were banging patchouli!
Sam: I didn't think she smelled that bad.
Dean: And then suddenly I was in a different place. And there were these beings. And they were too bright to look at, but I could feel them pulling me towards this sort of table -

Sam: Probing table!

Dean: God, don't say that out loud!
Dean: So on top of all the demons and the angels and the ghosts and the skinwalkers, it turns out that there's... So if aliens are actually real, what's next, huh? Hobbits? Seriously.
Dean: Yes, you sit in the dark and you feel the loss.

Sam: Absolutely, but couldn't I just do all that and have sex with the hippie chick?
Dean: NO!

Sam: It would be in the dark.
Dean: Nipples??
Dean: It was a little, naked lady, okay?

Sam: It was a what?
Dean: It was a little, glowing, hot, naked lady with... nipples, and... she hit me.

Sam: I'm not supposed to laugh, right?
Dean: God, is it on me? I feel like I've got the crazy on me.

Sam: No. You did sit in some glitter, though.

Dean: Makes me want to believe in UFOs again.
Dean: Fight The Fairies! Fight The Fairies!

Trivia & References

The title of the episode is reference to a line from J.M. Barrie's "The Adventures of Peter Pan", in which Peter asked the children dreaming of the Neverland to clap their hands if they believed in fairies in order to keep Tinkerbell alive. It is also the name of a 1989 animated film.
The brothers first investigated a possible alien abduction in 2.15 Tall Tales. Bobby states in the episode that he had never found any real evidence of an alien abduction. The culprit in that case was discovered to be The Trickster
The opening credits to the episode are an homage to the 1990s series The X-Files, using similar music and images. The final text “The Truth is in There” is a twist on the X-Files catchphrase “The Truth Is Out There.”

When the episode, 'Clap Your Hands If You Believe...,' was in the planning stages, "we decided to do an alien abduction as the teaser, and we immediately thought to do the title sequence," Gamble said.
Sera Gamble on why they decided to pay tribute to the X-Files:

"It would be hard to find someone working on the show who isn't an 'X-Files' fan," Gamble continued. "It was especially fun to put together the homage because 'Supernatural' does owe a real creative debt of gratitude to the show; I think the whole current generation of genre shows does." Source

See Title Card for other episodes of Supernatural which have had different opening credits.

The X-Files titles remained unchanged for the first seven seasons of the show, changing when David Duchovny (Fox Mulder) left, and again on Gillian Anderson’s (Dana Scully) departure.
Supernatural gave a nod to the X-Files in the Pilot episode when Dean introduced himself and Sam to a group of FBI agents as Agents Mulder and Scully. In 2.07 The Usual Suspects, Dean calls Sam 'Scully,' to which he replies:

Sam: I'm not Scully, you're Scully.

Dean: No, I'm Mulder. You're a red-headed woman.

In 3.11 Mystery Spot, Dean said "Sounds pretty X-Files to me." Coincidentally the episode was directed by Kim Manners, who also directed the The X-Files's time loop episode, "Monday."
Supernatural producer and director Kim Manners directed 52 episodes of The X-Files and was also a producer from 1995 to 2002. Other crew who worked on both shows include writer John Shiban, director David Nutter, and producer Vladimir Stefoff.
Like Supernatural, The X-Files was also filmed in Vancouver. Many actors have appeared on both shows, including:


Kramer, who plays Mr Cooper the carnival owner in 2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown, appeared in three The X-Files episodes (as different characters).

Other possible X-Files references include:

  • Dean's exclamation "Fight The Fairies" is reminiscent of the first X-Files feature film, the X-Files: Fight the Future.
  • Sam spilled salt, and the leprechaun started to count each grain. In the X-Files season 5 episode 5X12 "Bad Blood", Mulder spilled sunflower seeds to stop the vampire - in this episode, vampires must stoop to count each grain.
  • The cornfield chase is similar to that in The X-Files: Fight the Future, which is an homage to North by Northwest.



See X-Files for more the show's influence on Supernatural.
Dean: It's not her fault she took the brown acid.
Brown acid refers to having a bad LSD trip, which originated at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.
Dean: I was abducted, and you were banging patchouli!

Sam: I didn't think she smelled that bad.

Patchouli is a strong smelling plant, often used in perfume and insect repellent... But in this case, it's in reference to its use in incense, which is commonly associated with hippies.
Dean: You want to be a real boy, Pinocchio, you got to act the part.... Until we get you back on the soul train, I'll be your conscience.

Sam: So you're saying you'll be my Jiminy Cricket?
Dean: Shut up. But yeah, you frickin' puppet, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Sam: So you're my blue fairy, you can make me a real boy again?
Leprechaun: When you wish upon a star!

Pinocchio is a character from a 19th century Italian novel, although the references in this episode come from the 1940 Disney cartoon version. Pinocchio is a wooden puppet, and his maker Geppetto wishes that he could be a real boy. A blue fairy grants the wish, on the grounds that Pinocchio prove that he can act like a human boy. Since Pinocchio has no conscience, a cricket called Jiminy agrees to act as his conscience.

"When You Wish Upon a Star" is the main song played during the opening and closing credits of Pinocchio. It has since become the theme song of the Walt Disney Company, often used during commercials, opening film credits, etc.
Dean: Until we get you back on the soul train, I'll be your conscience.
Soul Train was an American musical variety show that ran for 35 years.
Dean: Close encounter! Close encounter!

Sam: Close encounter? What kind? First? Second?
Dean: They're after me!
Sam: Third kind already? You better run, man. I think the fourth kind is a butt thing.
A close encounter is a reference to an alien encounter. The term was coined by UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek, who came up with an incremental classification system for different types of human/alien encounters:
First Kind: Sighting of a UFO (flying saucer or strange lights)
Second Kind: Sighting of a UFO and associated physical effects of a UFO (crop circles, radiation, paralysis, lost time, etc.)
Third Kind: An observation of "animate beings" in conjunction with a UFO sighting.
Fourth Kind: Abduction. (not part of Hynek's original scale)
For a possible example of Sam's fourth kind encounter, see the very first episode of South Park, titled "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe."

The term "close encounter" was popularized by the movie Close Encounters of The Third Kind.
Wayne Whittaker: Like I said before, son. The truth is out there.
"The Truth Is Out There" was the catchphrase/motto of The X-Files.
Sam: So, how do we deal with the little green men?
Little green men is a common term for aliens.
Dean microwaving the Fairy could be a shoutout to the scene in the 1984 movie Gremlins where Mrs Peltzer kills one of the evil gremlins by microwaving it.
Sam: Hey, you're the one that pizza-rolled Tinkberbell.
Tinkerbell is a fairy from Peter Pan.
Sam: It's like Sedona, Arizona, crapped in here.
Sedona has a reputation as a centre for new age spirituality.
Marion: We know they only take first-born sons, just like Rumpelstiltskin did.
Rumpelstiltskin is the creature/character in a German fairy tale. He makes a deal with a miller's daughter to spin straw into gold, in exchange for her first-born child.
Marion: Personally, I think they're taken to Avalon to service Oberon, king of the faery.
Avalon is an island in England that features prominently in Arthurian legend. In medieval and Renaissance literature, Oberon is king of the fairies and is most known nowadays as a character in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Dean: Freaking full of Keebler's over here, man. Just full of 'em!
The Keebler Elves have appeared in countless television advertisements throughout the years, shown baking Keebler cookies and cracker products.
Dean: It's like the story with the shoe guy and all the elves.
The story Dean is referring to The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Brothers Grimm, in which a poor shoemaker receives much-needed help from elves.
Dean: Do you think Lucky Charms could have returned soul to sender?

A reference to the cereal Lucky Charms, whose mascot character is a Leprechaun named Lucky.

The cereal was first mentioned in 1.18 Something Wicked, when a young Dean gives the last of the Lucky Charms he was saving for him self to Sam (in the first documented use of Sam's famous Puppy Dog Eyes)

In 6.04 Weekend at Bobby's a demon reveals that Crowley's nickname is Lucky the Leprechaun.
The banishing spell Sam uses is in Scottish Gaelic:

Leig seachad an ceangal sin, agus smàl an solus sin, agus fuadaich an sídhe air ais gu'n àite-breith.
Let go of that binding, and blow out that light, and banish the fairies back to their birthplace.

Сum sabhailt ar naoidhein gun am breith, agus cum dùinte an geata uamhasach seo.

Keep the unborn children safe, and keep this terrible gate shut.
Sam: Little big man.
Little Big Man was a Native American chief, a fearless and respected warrior who fought under, and was rivals with, Crazy Horse. It was also a 1970 American Western film directed by Arthur Penn and based on the 1964 novel by Thomas Berger.
The being that stalks and assaults Dean is a Red Cap - a murderous assassin variety of fairy.
* On the night it aired #FightTheFairies trended on Twitter. Similar to when #LuciferIsComing trended and caused much confusion, some on Twitter thought the hashtag was a homophobic slur. See Twitter for more info.
Twitter Fairies.JPG

At Salute to Supernatural San Francisco 2011 Jensen explained that he had adlibbed the line "Fight the fairies" Source.
Robert Picardo who played Wayne Whittaker talks about working on the show.

Minutiae

The hotel room the brothers are staying in a has a corn theme, which may be a reference to the corn field where the boy in the teaser and Dean are abducted.
The exact time Dean returns to the motel room, according to Sam's cell phone, is 4:07am.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

Promotion

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