<- No Exit
Crossroad Blues ->
  • Cathryn Humphris
  • Mike Rohl
  • January/February 2006
  • October 2006

Summary

Official CW Description - HORROR FILM STAR LINDA BLAIR ("THE EXORCIST") GUEST STARS - Sam and Dean investigate the murders of a lawyer and his wife who claimed to have seen a ghost right before they died. However, after local detectives Ballard and Sheridan uncover the Winchesters' records, they arrest the brothers for a double homicide before they are able to find the ghost. When the ghost begins to visit Ballard, she begins to wonder if the tale Sam and Dean are telling her could be true, and if she might be the next to die.

Timeline

January/February 2006 Claire wants to come clean about dealing in heroin and is murdered
October 2006 (day 1) Tony Giles wants to come clean about the money for the stolen heroin and is murdered
October 2006 (day 4) Dean and Sam interview Karen Giles
October 2006 (day 4, night) Dean and Sam break into Tony Giles' office; Dana Schulps research while in the office; Dean goes to talk to Karen again; Karen is killed; Dean is arrested; Sam is arrested
October 2006 (day 5) Sam is interrogated by Diana; Dean "confesses"; Sam escapes
October 2006 (day 5, night) Diana sees Claire; Diana finds Sam; Sam and Diana go to Ashland St.
October 2006 (day 6, 2am) Pete takes Dean out of the precinct; Diana confronts Pete
October 2006 (day 6, morning) Diana lets Dean and Sam "escape"

Trivia

Writing the Episode

  • Cathryn Humphris wrote out her storyline using a ghost to warn about a human killer to keep the audience guessing. Eric liked the idea, but when he came to look at her storyboard, he pointed out a small beat in the story. The boys were going to get arrested to tell their stories. Eric was like, 'That's your story right there, that's how you do it.' This became a framework, to work in a melding of police procedural for intense interrogations with the other mashup as a horror movie.Supernatural The Official Companion Season 2, p. 50-51
  • There were a couple of places tubular bells were used as a nod for The Exorcist.

Casting Characters

  • According to the Supernatural The Official Companion Season 2, Karen Giles' name is spelled Caron Giles.
  • Keegan Connor Tracy who played Karen Giles also played Sera Siege in The Monster at the End of This Book.
  • "The fact that the queen [Linda Blair] of the scariest horror movie ever wanted to be in our show validated us in a way that was very humbling and very exiting for me." Kripke gushed.Supernatural The Official Companion Season 2, p. 51

Filming

  • Director Mike Rohl says that Jared and Jensen take their work very seriously, being perhaps the most prepared actors he's worked with in episodic TV. They study the scripts, know where their characters are going, and the overall story. They were his dream because both boys know the beats, making the working environment more productive.Supernatural The Official Companion Season 2, p. 52
  • "Jared and Jensen's characters are so well-developed now that they take artistic license - add their own flavor to their dialogue," Explains sound mixer Donald Painchaud. "The actors are actually encouraged to improvise, especially when we replace or add dialogue in ADR [automated dialogue replacement] sessions, and then the editors do a great job of cutting it in. ... One example of that is in the very last scene, where they're walking away and Jensen says, 'I could really go for some pea soup,' ... That was done in the ADR truck: that wasn't done on the day."Supernatural The Official Companion Season 2, p. 52-53

Other

  • The Meaning of Episode Title: The Usual Suspects is a 1995 movie by with Kevin Spacey and Stephen Baldwin, in which a con-man, interrogated by the police, tells a convoluted story of events that lead up to a massacre and fire at the docks. Using flashbacks, he tries to explain how he and his fellow partners-in-crime were on the boat that was involved, but not everything is as it seems. The episode draws heavily from the style of the film, using flashback and narration as well, as Sam and Dean tell their story.
  • The subtitles on the DVD sections are:
    • Murder suspect.
    • Good cop.
    • danashulps...
    • Bruises.
    • Death omen.
    • Nice lady... for a cop.
  • A meta-reference to the film The Exorcist was made in this episode. On the show, demons possessing humans is a common plot element; demons in the series are human souls corrupted by their time in Hell, lacking physical bodies of their own to interact with Earth. Linda Blair appeared as a police detective, with protagonist Dean Winchester finding her character familiar and expressing a strange desire for pea soup at the episode's conclusion.
  • "You and Dad still running credit card scams?" was the original line in the Pilot. The line was shortened for the THEN sequence, to just say "You still running credit card scams?"

Pop Culture

  • Dean: Anthony Giles.
    Likely a play on Anthony Head, who played Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Diana: Whose demise was, well, just a little bit exaggerated.
    A common misquote from Mark Twain, who actually said, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
  • Dean: What do you think, Scully? You wanna check it out?
    Sam: I'm not Scully, you're Scully
    nDean: No, I'm Mulder. You're a red-headed woman.
    FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigated X-Files, marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena, on the 1990s TV show The X-Files. Agent Scully had red hair.
  • Dean: Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
    A reference to the famous phrase Jack Nicholson's character typed for hundreds of pages in The Shining.
  • Dean: Hey, thanks for the law review, Matlock. But. If you want to help me...
    [...]
    Sam: Sure thing, Matlock.
    Ben Matlock is an attorney played by Andy Griffith in the TV show Matlock.
  • Dean: You know, Casper the bloodthirsty ghost?
    A play on Casper the Friendly Ghost.
  • Dean: You know, sometimes the spirits, they, they get things jumbled. You remember "REDRUM". Same concept.
    "Murder" spelled backwards, a plot device used in Stephen King's The Shining.
  • Dean: I'm not joking, Ponch.
    Dean refers to Detective Sheridan as "Ponch," a reference to his resemblance to Eric Estrada in CHiPs.
  • Note: HILTS -
    IT'S A STREET
    ASHLAND.
    -MCQUEEN
    A reference to The Great Escape - Steve McQueen played the lead character, Captain Hilts. It is most likely that this is code meaning one brother will stall, buying the other enough time to make their "great escape."
  • Dean: Time Life. Mysteries of the Unknown. Look it up.
    Time Life is a direct marketer known for selling books, music and movies. Mysteries of the Unknown is a series of books about the paranormal.
  • Dean: Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jim Rockford[.]
    Sam and Dean's practice of picking the first motel in the yellow pages and signing in as "Jim Rockford" is revealed to be the method they use to find each other when they get separated. Jim Rockford is a fictional private investigator from the 1970s TV series, The Rockford Files.
  • Dean: For some reason I could really go for some pea soup.
    Linda Blair played Regan in The Exorcist (1973), the movie famous for the vomiting pea soup scene.