First Blood

• Why didn't Dean and Sam pray to Castiel before calling Billie? And why couldn't Castiel tell where they were?
• After asking the Boys for "time", why is Mary really surprised that they didn't call her for help?
• Was Crowley lying when he said that he doesn't care what happens to the Winchesters? (As he sips an umbrella drink like the ones he drank with DemonDean; could he be reminiscing)?
• Billie implied that the consequences of breaking the blood pact with her would be "cosmic". Will Castiel have to face some sort of punishment? Will the Winchesters? Is the pact truly broken, or are the Winchesters still in danger and under Billie's death threat?
• Was Dean telling the truth when he said that being in the military prison was worse than being in hell?
• Are the British Men of Letters telling the whole truth about their intentions in America?
• If Mary agrees to work for the British Men of Letters, will this cause problems between her and the Boys? What happens if a hunter refuses to do as he/she is told? If there is a punishment involved, will the Boys have to protect their mother from her new bosses?
• Who will take Billie's place now that she and Death are both dead?
• Toni Bevel and Ms. Watt called Mr. Ketch a psychopath, but so far he seems more measured and reasonable than either of them were. Is he misleading the Winchesters so far? Or is he truly not the psychopath his colleagues believe him to be?
• Pregnant Kelly (carrying Lucifer's nephilim child) is still missing. Where is she and what's happening with her?
• Lucifer is locked away now (supposedly); but can he still exert power, like he did when he sent Sam hallucinations in season 10? He's unlikely to quietly accept imprisonment knowing he has a child on the way, right?

• Crowley still seems to favor the umbrella drinks that DemonDean ordered for him as a joke.
• Castiel must have been counting every minute since the Boys disappeared, since he knew exactly how many weeks, days, and hours they'd been missing.
• Now that Billie is dead, the "permanent death" threat that has been hanging over the Winchesters since season 10 should be lifted. Or is it?
• Castiel answers his phone "What." when he doesn't know who is calling.
• Mary drives fast, like Dean does
• The British Men of Letters apparently have the ability to hack into a thermal imaging satellite.
• When Mick Davies is typing his report on what looks like an antique typewriter, we see that he posts an introduction and waits for an indication (presumably from his superiors) that the connection is secure; the typewriter appears to type this message by itself.

• This was Supernatural's 250th episode!
• At the beginning of the episode, Mary is having coffee at Mulroney's diner in Lawrence, Kansas. This is a fictional place. However, we learned in "Keep Calm and Carry On" (season 12, episode 1) that this is the diner where John and Mary Winchester met for coffee on their first date.
• Alicia and her brother were hunting in Lancaster, Missouri. We first met Alicia and her brother (who are hunters and witches) in "Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox" (Season 12: episode 6). The late Asa Fox was their father.
• When the guard found Sam dead in his cell, he told Sanchez and Camp that he performed CPR; however, Sam's body was lying on his cot, positioned on his side -- the same position he was in when the guard found him, and not the position you would need to perform CPR.
• The woods used in this episode were the same woods where the Purgatory scenes were filmed.

• The episode title "First Blood" refers to the 1982 movie of the same name, and the first film of the "Rambo: First Blood" franchise. In the movie, a war veteran (John Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone) is unfairly targeted and arrested by police in a small town. He escapes into the wilderness and uses his combat and survival skills to turn the tables on his pursuers, much like Dean and Sam did in this episode.
• In this episode, Dean says to Sanchez and his soldiers "We're not trapped out here with you. You're trapped out here with us." A very similar line is repeated twice in the movie "First Blood". First, one police officer says to another "We're not hunting him. He's hunting us." Similarly, when Rambo's former commanding officer (Colonel Troutman, played by Richard Crenna) arrives to help defuse the situation, he tells the sheriff "I'm not here to save Rambo from you, but you from him."
• Crowley tells Castiel that the Winchesters are "like herpes" implying that they keep coming back. This refers to the herpes virus, which can seem to go dormant in the body, only to recur later.
• 'I pity the fool." is an line from another Sylvester Stallone film franchise -- the "Rocky" films. This line was made famous by Mr. T, whose real name is Laurence Tureaud.
• Elk Mountain and Long's Peak are both in Colorado. They are approximately 51 miles apart, and it would take approximately 22 hours to get from one point to the other on foot. If Dean and Sam were in the middle of these two landmarks, it might have taken them approximately 12 hours to reach either point. Route 34 runs northeast and could be used to help get from one point to the other, but it doesn't connect the two landmarks point-to-point. According to Googlemaps, Elk Mountain is within the boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park, but Long's Peak lies outside the park's borders.
• Dean's "failure to communicate" line is from the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke", about a convict (played by Paul Newman) who suffers under the unfair conditions and treatment at a prison, but refuses to submit to their control.

• "If You Want Blood" -- by AC/DC (plays during the recap)
• "Ghost Town" -- by The Specials (plays when Mick Davies is typing his report)
• "En el Cielo, No Hay Cervesa" (translation: "In heaven, there's no beer") -- by Flaco Jiminez (plays when Castiel and Crowley are talking at the bar)

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More Season 12 Discussions

EPISODE # 10: Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets