Difference between revisions of "7.04 Defending Your Life"

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Dean: That sounds right - get vengeance on the guy that Michael Vicked you.<br>
 
Dean: That sounds right - get vengeance on the guy that Michael Vicked you.<br>
 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Vick Michael Vick] is an NFL quarterback who was convicted on charges related to dog-fighting.}}
 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Vick Michael Vick] is an NFL quarterback who was convicted on charges related to dog-fighting.}}
 +
{{TriviaQuote |Text=
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'''Osiris''': Quit squirming, Mr. Winchester. They're Houdini-proof.<br>
 +
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houdini Harry Houdini] was a famous magician and escape artist.
 +
}}
 
{{TriviaQuote |Text=
 
{{TriviaQuote |Text=
 
Dean: I'd rather talk about your Bukowski-schtick at the bar.<br>
 
Dean: I'd rather talk about your Bukowski-schtick at the bar.<br>

Revision as of 12:37, 15 October 2011


704promotionalstill.jpg
Title Defending Your Life
Episode # Season 7, Episode 4
First aired October 14, 2011
Directed by Bob Singer
Written by Adam Glass
On IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1995119/
Outline
Monster Osiris
Timeline
Location(s) Dearborn, Michigan
[[{{{prevep}}}|« Previous Episode]] | [[{{{nextep}}}|Next Episode »]]

Synopsis

Sam and Dean travel to Dearborn, Michigan, for a case. Posing as FBI agents, they enter the crime scene of a man who was hit by a car and killed... on the tenth floor of his apartment building. After scanning Matthew Hammond's apartment for EMF, they conclude that a ghost is responsible, and they find red dirt on the ground. After looking through his belongings they decide to follow up on two things: Dean will visit Jane's, the place where Matthew spent $50 every month, and Sam will go to Matthew's Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting.

At the Dearborn Outreach Center, Sam speaks to a woman who knew Matthew from Alcoholic's Anonymous. She tells him that Matthew—ten years sober—called her from Neil's Tavern, about to fall off the wagon. She met him there and talked him out of drinking again, but she doesn't know what caused his near relapse. Meanwhile, Dean arrives at Jane's, a florist, and learns that Matthew had monthly deliveries of flowers sent to Elizabeth Duren. He also paid for three years' worth of deliveries in advance just a few days ago.

Dean gets Elizabeth's address from the florist, and he and Sam arrive there to find her grave. Elizabeth Duren died ten years ago at the age of ten when her then neighbor, Matthew Hammond, backed up over her on her bike. It was ruled an accident, but Sam and Dean suspect that Matthew was drunk when it happened, and that the guilt of the incident is what compelled him to stop drinking. They dig up Elizabeth's grave and salt and burn her bones to put her spirit to rest.

After taking care of Elizabeth, however, another local man dies in a strange, unexplainable way. Christopher Fisher, a man who was convicted of running a dog fighting ring years ago, was found ripped to shreds in a diner bathroom by a dog that nobody saw or heard. Dean seems to think the man deserved to be killed by a spectral dog looking for revenge, but Sam is adamant that Christopher seemed genuinely sorry for what he'd done, volunteering at and raising money for dog shelters beyond anything required of him by a court. At Sam's insistence, they immediately leave for the morgue, where Sam finds red dirt on Christopher's shoes and under his nails. Because they also found red dirt in Matthew's apartment, they assume they were both in the same place just before they died.

The red dirt leads Sam and Dean to a nearby apple farm. Before they can get there, however, they're stopped in the road by a man named Warner who jumps in front of their car. They take Warner back to their motel room and, after some coaxing, they learn that he was recently released from jail, where he served thirty years for killing a liquor store owner and his wife during a robbery. When he was leaving Neal's Tavern the other night he was jumped, and when he woke up, he was in a strange courtroom. It was in a barn at the apple orchard, and there were "weird symbols." While there, a judge put him on trial and sentenced him to death. Sam asks him to draw the symbols and then is pulled outside by Dean, who has reservations about helping Warner—after all, he's a murderer. Sam tells Dean that they have no right to judge others, but Dean isn't convinced. He leaves to check out Neil's Tavern, where they know now that two of their victims visited before their deaths.

While Dean goes to the bar, Sam gets the sketch of the "weird symbols" from Warner and tells him that they have to go back to the barn where he was on trial. Warner refuses, so Sam sets him up in a chair surrounded by a ring of salt before leaving, already on the phone to Bobby for a consult on the symbols. When he arrives at the orchard, he goes to the large red barn that Warner described, but it's empty except for hay and a little red dirt. When he's about to leave, he gets a call from Bobby, who tells him that the symbols were Egyptian, from the Book of the Dead, and that they're dealing with Osiris, an Egyptian God who can see directly into a human heart. He weighs a person's heart and, if he finds more than "a feather's worth" of guilt, he kills them. Sam seems ready to go after him, but Bobby tells him that he and Dean should get away from Dearborn before Osiris hones in on them.

Meanwhile, Dean is at Neal's Tavern flirting with an attractive bartender. She asks him what's weighing on him, and he reveals that he's feeling bad about having to go behind someone's back while on the job. She sympathizes, but tells him not to feel bad if it's something that he had to do. He slams back a few more hard drinks, but then switches to beer when she alludes that she's getting off work soon. Later, when he's outside the bar and psyching himself up for their "date," he gets a call from Sam. He picks up, but is snatched by Osiris before he can say anything.

Worried, Sam continues to call Dean's cell phone until it's picked up by the bartender. Apparently, Dean's cell phone was left on the ground outside the bar, and she heard it ringing while she waited for him. Sam gets there quickly and questions the bartender. When he looks where she found Dean's phone, he sees more red dirt, so he heads back to the apple orchard.

Once there, Sam approaches the barn, where he finds Dean chained to a chair in front of Osiris. Osiris can sense Sam's presence outside the barn, and he invites him in. When Sam learns that Dean is going on trial, he insists on defending him and then objects to the fairness of the hearing. Osiris has little patience for him, but agrees to limit the number of his witnesses to three. His first witness is Jo Harvelle.

Characters

Definitions

Music

Quotes

Dean: Check this out - A.A., ten years. Dead and sober. Double crappy.
Dean: Wait a second, do dogs even have ghosts?
Osiris: Don’t you think that your brother dragged you back into that catastrophic mess because he’d rather damn you with him than be alone?
Jo: You carry all kinds of crap you don't have to Dean. Kind of gets clearer when you're dead.

Dean: Well in that case you should able to see I am 90% crap. I get rid of that, what then?

Jo: You really want to die not knowing?
Dean: He was right you know. That dick judge - about me. You were a kid.

Jo: Not true.

Dean: You and Sam. And I just..you know...Hunters are never kids. I was never was. I didn't stop to think about it.

Trivia & References

The title of the episode Defending Your life is also the title of a 1991 movie starring Albert Brooks. In the movie, when people die they must defend their life in an afterlife court. If they can prove they have conquered their fears, they pass on to the next phase of existence. If not, their soul is sent back to Earth.
Sam (With EMF meter): It's going crazy. Some kind of ghost maybe?

Dean: With a license? A license to kill! Sam: Really?

In the James bond books and movies, his 00 assignation (he is agent 007) indicates he has a 'licence to kill'. This is a tag line through the series, and the name of both a book and a movie.
Faran Tahir, who plays Osiris, got his first speaking role on the series Midnight Caller. This was the first series on which Bob Singer (director of this episode), Jim Michaels and Phil Sgriccia worked together. Source - Jim Michaels on Twitter
Dean: It could be Christine like.
Christine is a movie about a possessed car.
Dean: So what he causes so much misery that some dog goes Cujo on him from beyond the grave?

Bob Singer, who directed this episode, was a producer on the movie Cujo.

This may be a double reference to Stephen King - Misery and Cujo were the names of two of his novels. A third novel, Christine, was also referenced in the episode.
Dean: That sounds right - get vengeance on the guy that Michael Vicked you.
Michael Vick is an NFL quarterback who was convicted on charges related to dog-fighting.
Osiris: Quit squirming, Mr. Winchester. They're Houdini-proof.
Harry Houdini was a famous magician and escape artist.
Dean: I'd rather talk about your Bukowski-schtick at the bar.

Charles Bukowski was an American writer known for being a barfly.

Dean previously mentioned Bukowski in 5.22 Swan Song.
Sam: Objection!

Osiris: grounds? Witnesses being called without prior notice.
Dean: Good One!
Sam: I saw it on The Good Wife.

The Good Wife is a legal drama on CBS that started in 2009.
Dean: Enough Ally McBeal.
Ally McBeal was a 1990s legal comedy-drama by David E Kelley.
Dean's line "I didn't want to do it alone" recalls this exchange in the 1.01 Pilot:

Dean: I can’t do this alone.
Sam: Yes, you can.

Dean: Yeah, well... I don’t want to.
When Osiris dies, his glowing eyes recall those of the Gou'ald from the Stargate TV series. The Gou'ald were an alien race who masqueraded on Earth as Egyptian gods.

Minutiae

Jim Michaels was a producer on Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
Trivia tweeted by EP Jim Michaels during the episode:
  • Two different 2 highly trained attack dogs were used.
  • the farm where the barn is belongs to one of the Supernatural Dolly grips Steve Gilmour.
  • Some of the Eqyptian statues are now on the front lawn of location manager Russ "The Movie God" Hamilton's home for Halloween!
The first victim Matthew Hammond had a number of deer related items in his apartment including a postcard, a drawing on his pinboard, and a plaque on the wall. Unfortunately no Deer's Head was spotted.
There is a rainbow sticker on the door of Jane's the Florist, suggesting that Sam's suggestion "you go hit on Jane" was likely to have been unsuccessful if Dean did.
Christopher Fisher, when he's trying to escape the spectral German Shepherd, runs past McOwen's Irish Pub, which featured in 6.14 Mannequin 3: The Reckoning. It was the bar that Isabel Brown and her coworkers at the factory frequented.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

Promotion

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