Stairway to Heaven

• What will the Mark of Cain do to Dean in the end?
• Has Dean killed Gadreel?
• How can Castiel hope to defeat Metatron now that he's lost his angel army?
• Will Dean and Sam help Cas now in his fight to free Heaven?

• Tessa was brainwashed by Metatron into acting as a suicide bomber.
• Metatron had an elite unit of angel suicide bombers as part of his plan to discredit Castiel.
• Cas' grace is fading fast. He won't survive unless he takes another angel's grace.

• During this episode, Metatron tries on a trench coat similar to Castiel's to see if it makes him more appealing. Metatron has commented before (in "Clip Show" season 8) that he should've picked a more physically attractive vessel like Castiel's
• Ironically, Tessa was preparing to detonate a bomb during a performance of "Jesus Christ Superstar", a rock music adaptation of the New Testament story of Christ

• The title references the 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin, released on the band's untitled fourth album. The song runs for 8:02; it was never released as a single because the band refused to cut it down to fit
• Castiel chooses fed aliases Spears and Aguilera for Dean and Sam. These refer to pop music performers Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Castiel is correct that the Winchesters frequently use rock musician aliases, but he doesn't realize the aliases are always male performers
• Metatron tells Gadreel that they had their shot with "operation Lee Harvey" referring to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man believed to have assassinated President John Kennedy. Oswald (who was murdered before going to trial) said to authorities that he was a "patsy", implying that he'd been set up. Metatron may have set Gadreel up to be a patsy
• Sam warns Castiel that among his angel followers, he's part rock star and part "L Ron" referring to L. Ron Hubbard who founded the Church ofScientology
• While Metatron chides Gadreel about secretly meeting with Castiel he referencesthe biblical quote about "sin and stones". The quote Metatron is referring to is from John 8:7 "Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her."
• Dean refers to the suicide bombers as "the Manson girls", alluding to the cult followers of Charles Manson, who committed brutal murders in 1969 on Manson's orders
• Tessa says she remembers her and Dean's "meet cute", referring to (in television or films) a first meeting between two people who end up together
• Dean: "Only if it's Fiddler." This refers to the 1964 musical, "Fiddler on the Roof", based on the story Tevye and his Daughters, is set in Russia in 1905. It explores the life of a Jewish milkman, Tevye against the backdrop of Tsarist pogroms which threaten to evict his family from their lands.
• Castiel: "And the answer is the key, like the Doors of Durin in Lord of the Rings." - This references "The Lord of the Rings", a fantasy novel series by J.R.R. Tolkien concerning the adventures of a group of humans, elves, and hobbits who must destroy an evil ring by throwing it into Mount Doom. The Fellowship have to solve the riddle on the doors to enter the Dwarven city of Khazad-dum.
• Metatron refers to Dean and Sam as the Hardy Boys, alluding to two fictional, teenage, amateur detectives from a series of books (1927 - present)
• Sam: "Only the penitent man shall pass." - This refers to the 1989 movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". Archaeologist Indiana Jones must pass three traps and for the first he has to kneel to avoid hidden blades which decapitate the unwary. The line Sam quotes is the solution to the trap.
• Dean sarcastically refers to Metatron as "Mother Theresa with neck beard", alluding to Mother Theresa of Calcutta, a nun who worked among the poor in India, founded a religious order, and was later canonized a saint by the Catholic church
• When Sam and Castiel find the burned angel, Sam comments that the angel got "Home Alone'd", referring to the 1990 comedy about a young boy who uses booby traps to stop burglars
• Metatron says that while everyone else was playing chess, he was playing Monopoly and he always builds a hotel on Boardwalk. Monopoly is a popular board game launched by the Hasbro toy company in 1935. In the game, players pretend to be real estate tycoons, and the object of the game is to own the most expensive real estate on the board. Hotels are the most expensive structures in the game, and Boardwalk is the most expensive place to build one. So owning a hotel on Boardwalk gives a player a definite advantage over all the other players in the game

• "Cheek to Cheek" - by Frank Sinatra/Fred Astaire (plays when Sam and Castiel find the "trick" secret doorway to Heaven)

See below for the discussion thread for this episode.

EPISODE 923: DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?