The Hunter Games

• Will Crowley notice pieces of his tie missing and realize Rowena has been using his personal items to work spells on him?
• What does Rowena really want? The throne?
• Where has Rowena been for 300 years?
• Is Crowley really being fooled by Rowena, or is he just playing along?
• Can the First Blade really help Dean somehow?
• Was Metatron telling the truth about the river ending at the source? And if so, what does that mean? Is the source Cain? god? Lucifer?
• Will Claire really be able to turn her life around?
• Will Dean be able to fight the effects of the Mark? And if so, for how long?
• The Mark of Cain turned Dean into a demon before; what will happen if the Mark takes him over again? What will happen if he dies again? Can he die?
• How will the angels punish Castiel for taking Metatron out of prison and allowing him to get hurt? Does Castiel have enough energy from his borrowed grace to heal Metatron's injuries?

• The Mark isn't just a physical mark that can be cut off or burned off; it will take a powerful force to remove it.
• Rowena appears to be a masterful manipulator.
• Rowena abandoned Fergus at a work house as a child, so she could go off to become a more powerful witch.
• Even though Randy sold Claire to pay a debt, she doesn't think Dean should have killed him.
• Castiel likes texting and using emoticons
• Unless Metatron is lying, every time Dean hurts or kills someone, the Mark increases its hold on him.
• Castiel apparently still has enough power from his borrowed angel grace to blast through doors; but he doesn't have enough to heal Metatron?
• Longing for an angel, or thinking about him/her is enough to work as a prayer and bring the angel to you.

• Claire's room was at the Astoria Hotel. The Astoria Hotel was also featured in season 4 (Lazarus Rising); it's where Dean and Bobby found Sam and Ruby, in Pontiac, Illinois.
• After Dean and Sam found Crowley's bones in season 6 (Weekend at Bobby's), Crowley moved his bones from a cemetery inScotland to a crypt in Guam.
• This is the first time in a while that we've heard Dean's rock-n-roll cell phone ringtone.
• Castiel's pimpmobile has Idaho license plates: IA-B2676
• This episode was dedicated to Matt Riley, who was Jared's stand in for several years. Matt died in 2014. The set designers also included a picture of Matt in "The Executioner's Song"
• Ruth Connell is Scottish in real life. The producers asked her to tone down her accent so the SPN audience would be able to understand her better.
• Bradley Stryker, who played the drifter in this episode, also played Ted, the brother-in-law in "Family Remains" (season 4)

• "The Hunter Games" is an allusion to the popular book and movie franchise, "The Hunger Games"
• Rowena mentions people having fever dreams during the "plague years". However, Fergus Macleod was born in the 1600s, and Crowley says Rowena disappeared for 300 years. The "Black Death" occurred during the 1300s, so Rowena would not have been alive at that time. There were other plague outbreaks in Europe during the 1600's, so perhaps Rowena was referring to one of those.
• Rowena says she abandoned Fergus (Crowley) as a child to study under the famous witch, Letitia D'albionia; this witch is apparently fictional.
• While casting her astral projection spell, Rowena invokes the "wings of Tatania". Tatania is the fictional queen of the fairies from William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
• Shakespeare is referenced elsewhere in this episode: In the DVD commentary, the writers reveal that the show's producers wanted Rowena to be a Lady MacBeth type of character in terms of her influence on Crowley. Crowley's vision of being murdered by his associates is also an allusion to Julius Caesar's murder by his senators.
• Dean says that the body could around him will increase when "Hal" takes over. "Hal" is the sentient, fictional computer from the 1968 Stanley Kubrick sci-fi movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". In the movie, the artificially-intelligent computer murders some members of a spaceship's crew.
• "Nebbish" is a Yiddish word for someone who is awkward, nerdy, weak, and clumsy.

• "Long, Black Road" -- by the Electric Light Orchestra (plays during the opening recap)
• "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond"-- Scottish folk song published originally in 1841 (Rowena hums the tune while she's stealing a piece of Crowley's tie to cast a spell)
• "Scotland the Brave"--Scottish patriotic song (Rowena hums the tune while preparing to cast a spell on Crowley)
• "Drunk and On My Own" -- by Ross Hardy and Brian White (plays while Claire and the drifters are playing pool)

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EPISODE 10:11: There's No Place Like Home