The Things We Left Behind

The Things We Left Behind is the 9th episode of Season 10. It aired on December 9th, 2014.

Summary
CASTIEL REUNITES WITH JIMMY’S DAUGHTER CLAIRE — Castiel finds Jimmy’s daughter Claire (guest star Kathryn Love Newton) in a group home and she convinces him to break her out. After she runs away from him, Castiel calls Sam and Dean to help find her before she gets in trouble. Meanwhile, Crowley faces his biggest challenge yet.

Plot
The episode starts out with Dean on his knees in a room covered in blood and dirt with a bloody knife in his hand. He looks around the room, surrounded by people he has clearly killed. The look on his face clearly shows he's upset and surprised at what he's done. Then Dean jolts awake, realizing it was just a dream. However, the Mark of Cain is clearly still affecting him, and hurting his arm.

At a group home in Pontiac, Illinois, a police officer is leading a teenage Claire Novak into a holding room in isolation. After several hours in the cell she receives a visitor, a worker telling her it's her father. A quick flashback to when Castiel first possessed Jimmy Novak. After the worker leaves, Castiel reveals himself, much to Claire's disappointment. She asks if her father is still in there, but Cas tells her that an archangel exploded him and Jimmy, and even though Cas was resurrected, Jimmy was not. He tells her that her father is in heaven. Claire then explains that her mom left her months after Cas re-possessed her father "to find herself" and never came back. When her grandmother died, she ended up getting in and out of foster and group homes.

He offers his help and tries to pretend to be Jimmy and get custody of her. Even saying that he's an exterminator. But being a bad liar keeps him from being able to get custody of her.

At the bunker, Dean is watching The Three Stooges on a laptop laughing very hard, obviously faking it. Sam comes and joins in, giving Dean a grilled cheese sandwich, with Dean enjoying it a little too much. Sam looks over at the Mark of Cain and it looks like it's only gotten worse, but Dean continues to enjoy the video despite this. Similar to how he's dealt with pain before, he tries very hard to hide it from his little brother.

Claire wakes up to the sound of struggling outside her door and Cas is there to take her out, having knocked out one of the workers with his his angel powers.

In Hell's dungeon, one of Crowley's workers is locking down another demon in the same cell as Rowena, who has bruises on her face and is chained to the wall. She then begs to see her son, but the demon Gerald just leaves.

Cas buys Claire dinner at a restaurant where Claire notices that Cas is different from the last time they met. That he's nicer, and kind of a doof. He explains that he used to believe he was on some righteous path, but his experiences since then have made him feel otherwise. Cas then tells her that since he busted her out that they should stick together, even though Claire clearly doesn't want to. When she walks to go to the bathroom, she pickpockets him and steals his wallet and jumps into a stranger's car before Cas can catch her.

He has called Sam and Dean for help, and they are surprisingly reluctant to help. But he convinces them to help, and Sam goes to the group home while Dean and Cas have lunch. They talk about Cas having a midlife crisis, and Dean telling him that he should just let that stuff go, such as the people they've hurt or couldn't save. Even admitting he doesn't do this either. Cas then tells him he's a role model and asks him how he's doing, being able to see past his "I'm great" lie. After asking if the Mark of Cain is still affecting him, Dean has a flashback to the dream where he is surrounded by people that he has just killed. He then asks Cas to promise to kill him if he ever goes darkside, and that he doesn't care how Cas does it. He doesn't ever want to become a demon or killing-machine ever again.

Back in the dungeon, Rowena tries to make friends with the demon chained next to her, stating that her crime was being a horrible mother. Crowley is venting to another demon, stating the same thing. How she abandoned him when he was eight, and almost traded him for three pigs. Especially hating his name, Fergus. But he refuses to kill her or let anyone else.

Sam is at the group home getting information on Claire, and the woman in charge reveals the name of a friend of Claire's, Dustin Tate. Claire goes to the house where he lives with a man she and Dustin consider a father, Randy. But he reveals that he's borrowed too much money from loan shark Salinger, and needs her to rob a store to get him more money.

Sam, Dean, and Cas wait outside the Weiner Hut, where Dustin works at, and jump him. Cas even grabs him by the throat and lifts his feet off the ground, Sam and Dean warning him that he should tell them where Claire is. Meanwhile, Dean is stuffing his face with food.

Claire is about to rob a convenience store when Cas stops her and brings her outside to Sam and Dean. She tells them she remembers who they are, and tells Castiel that he can go to hell because he caused her father's death. She points a gun at him, but he tells her it won't hurt him, so she points it at Sam and Dean. Then says she doesn't believe Cas is sorry for what happened, but just feels guilty, and runs away from them again.

The demon Gerald brings Rowena to Crowley, and she tries to convince him that when would put him down as a kid she was just trying to motivate him. He shows his anger for her abandoning him, especially because he didn't have a father, and she reveals that she doesn't know who his father is because she conceived him in a Winter Solstice orgy. She tries to convince him to trust her. He remains weary.

Sam and Dean take Cas to a bar and buy him whiskey, trying to make him feel better. He then goes into how he never really knew his father, and asks Sam and Dean if they loved their father. They did, and Dean goes into a story of how he and Sam and John went to New York one time and enjoyed the sights of the city. Then Dean had snuck away from them and went to CBGB where he gets completely drunk for the first time, being way underage at the time. John then shows up, and when he says "Dean Winchester", everyone around Dean is suddenly afraid of him. Even a boy with a safety pin through his nose and a "Kill Everything" tattoo says to John, "Sorry, Sir". Dean yelled at him for embarrassing him and tells John he hates him. But John responds, "Son, you don't like me? That's fine. It's not my job to be liked. It's my job to raise you right." Sam and Dean agreeing that he did.

Claire goes back to Randy's place where Salinger and other loan sharks surround Randy. When she reveals that she doesn't have any money for him, she pulls a gun on the sharks, but is easily disarmed. Salinger then has her put in another room. Then he offers Randy a deal in which he'll forget about the deal if Randy gives him Claire.

Gerald throws Rowena back in the cell when she and the other demon try to convince Crowley that Gerald has been smuggling demons to Earth. Gerald tries to choke her, but Crowley saves her by stabbing him through the back of his neck and out his mouth with an angel blade, killing him. Then, tells Rowena she can leave with him. Turns out she talked the other demon into lying about the smuggling, and tells her she'll be back in a flash, the same thing she told Crowley before she left him when he was eight.

As Claire awaits in a room upstairs, Salinger comes in, showing that he wants to have sex with her. She kicks him in the groin and tries to escape, but he grabs her as she screams.

Cas, along with Sam and Dean armed with guns, are at the door. Cas throws one of the men across the room and through a door without touching him, demanding to know where Claire is. He hears her screaming upstairs and saves her from Salinger. After Castiel comes in, Claire fights back against Salinger and kicks him violently until Cas gets her to stop. When they get downstairs, she knows that Randy betrayed her, and Cas leads her outside, followed by Sam.

Dean is about to leave with them when the other sharks make a move and he forces them to back up farther. This distracts him as Salinger hits him over the head with a beer bottle, sending him to the ground. He begins to feel the affects of the Mark, and flashes of him being a demon and being affected by the Mark are shown before he warns the men that they do not want to fight him. Salinger responds by kicking him in the face.

Sam and Cas get Claire in the car. Castiel asks her if she's okay, and comforts her by holding her in his arms, like a father. Sam takes a few seconds to realize that Dean isn't back. Soon, he hears loud sounds of screaming and fighting inside the house. He begins to race back to the house.

Inside, similar to his dream (now revealed to be a vision), Dean is on his knees with a bloody knife in his hands, surrounded by the loan sharks he has just slaughtered. Dean begins to feel high from the Mark, and is awakened from this by everyone coming back in and Claire screaming. Cas holds her and tries to keep her from looking as Sam walks over to Dean, taking Dean's face in his hands. He begs Dean to tell him that he "had to do this," giving him the opportunity to lie about what happened, even though he knows exactly what happened. Dean responds with "I did. I didn't mean to," but Sam yells, "No, tell me it was them or you!"

Dean doesn't respond. Sam and Cas now understand just what the Mark is doing to him, and Cas now questions whether he follows through on his promise to his friend. Cas takes Claire back outside as Sam and Dean take in everything that's just happened.

Characters

 * Dean Winchester
 * Sam Winchester
 * Castiel
 * Claire Novak
 * Crowley
 * Dustin Tate
 * Jimmy Novak
 * Rowena
 * Gerald

Featured Supernatural Beings

 * Angels
 * Demons
 * Witch

Continuity

 * Claire references her first meeting with Castiel in The Rapture where, having just taken possession of Jimmy Novak, Castiel told her "I am not your father."
 * Castiel reveals that his vessel Jimmy Novak has been dead since Lucifer killed him in Swan Song.

Trivia

 * Castiel once again wears a tie. This is the first time since he discarded Jimmy Novak's clothes in I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here that he's made a tie part of his new permanent outfit. However, after he no longer needs it, he discards it again.