Form and Void is the 2nd episode of Season 11. It aired on October 14th, 2015.
Summary[]
There was something about being there... It felt pure. This episode summary is an official CW press release. It may contain errors. DO NOT CHANGE! |
Dean helps Jenna (guest star Laci J. Mailey), the police officer he met after the Darkness fell, get back home safely and then sets off to help Sam deal with a town infected by a mysterious and deadly gas. However, when Jenna falls into dangerous hands, she calls Dean for help and Sam tells him to go back to her. Unfortunately for Sam, he isn't able to handle the townspeople turned monsters as easily as he thought.
Plot[]
In Superior, Nebraska, Sam raids an abandoned store called Bob's Superior Hardware to gather supplies for a makeshift cattle prod. He then sets up his phone (in a bucket, to amplify the sound) to loudly play a video, successfully luring another infected man who is still of sound mind. Sam then uses the cattle prod to capture the man, and takes him back to the hospital, where he handcuffs him. He questions the man and attempts to learn more about the rabid infection, to try and find a cure.
Meanwhile, Castiel is still suffering the effects of Rowena's Attack Dog Spell, and has been captured by the angels Efram and Jonah. They have tied him up, and are torturing him for information on Metatron's whereabouts. Castiel tries to tell them that he doesn't know where Metatron is, but the angels don't believe him.
After leaving Deputy Jenna Nickerson and baby Amara at Jenna's grandmother's house, Dean starts driving back toward the hospital in Superior where Sam is dealing with the rabids. Baby Amara demonstrates telekinetic abilities, although she is merely a newborn. However, when Dean gets a call from Jenna about Amara, he immediately turns the Impala around to return to the house.
Back at the hospital in Superior, Sam has not been having much luck - the man he had taken prisoner lies dead on the floor, having succumbed to the infection. He continues to search for a cure, when suddenly, he hears a woman singing. Grabbing his gun, he goes to investigate and finds that the voice belongs to a reaper. She tells him she has a message for him: with Death now gone, the times of Sam and Dean dying and then coming back to life are over. If one of them dies now, the reapers will toss them into what she calls the Empty, where no one comes back from. She then adds that she knows that he is dying, and that he is "unclean, in the Biblical sense." As she leaves, she reveals her name is Billie.
The angels continue to torture Castiel until Hannah arrives, who tells them "Enough!" and orders them to get out. The others leave, and Castiel and Hannah are left alone.
As Sam's rabid infection worsens, he goes to the hospital's chapel to pray to God for help, and to give him a sign. Immediately after leaving the chapel, Sam experiences a vision of himself being tortured and held up by chains in a vague, red space. Shaken, he yells out in exasperation, "What does that mean?"
Baby Amara's abilities create a disturbance; she uses her telekinesis to spell out "FEED ME" with toy blocks. This troubles Jenna's grandmother, who then calls a priest because "the Devil is in that girl." When Dean arrives back at the house, Jenna informs him that an exorcist was sent to help them: "Father" Crowley.
Hannah goes to unchain Castiel, but he tells her to leave them on, saying that it's "safer this way." Castiel asks if she can heal him and remove the spell, but she is unable to. Castiel tells her that the spell is affecting him "deeper and deeper," even though he is doing his best to fight it. Hannah asks if it has anything to do with the events in Superior. He is surprised that Hannah knows about it, and she tells him that alarms have gone off; alarms that have never gone off before. Castiel tells her that the alarms are for the Darkness, which has been released. Hannah wants to know where the Darkness is, and then realizes that the Winchesters are the ones who would likely know. She demands that Castiel tell her where she can find them. He doesn't know, and starts to become suspicious about her questioning. He figures out that the whole thing was a setup, with Hannah coming in to "save" him from Efram and Jonah. The plan was that Castiel would be grateful enough that he would then tell Hannah all that the angels wanted to know. Efram and Jonah return, and when Castiel still refuses to give up the Winchesters' location, they shrug it off and tell him that it doesn't matter, because they'll just hack into his brain with torture.
Dean and Crowley go outside to talk. Dean asks if he thinks the baby is possessed by a demon, and Crowley replies, "Not even a little bit." Whatever is in that house is very old and powerful, so powerful that Crowley can feel it radiating from the house. They hear a scream and run back inside to find Jenna's grandmother dead on the floor.
Efram and Jonah continue to torture Castiel until Hannah tries to stop them, unable to watch anymore. They get into a fight, and as they beat Hannah, Castiel manages to escape from the chair and kills Jonah. Before he can get to the other angel, Hannah is stabbed and killed. Enraged, he attacks Efram by choking him before the two of them fight, ending with Castiel stabbing and killing him.
Sam's condition has started to deteriorate rapidly, and as his vision blurs and he struggles to remain upright, he remembers the words Billie said - that he was Biblically unclean. As a last resort, he searches "Bible purification" online, and finds that it can be done with burning holy oil. Stumbling over to the duffle bag he pulls out the holy oil and soaks a piece of gauze in it. He then lights the gauze on fire and uses tongs to hold it up to the black veins which have crawled their way up his neck. To his great relief and astonishment, they disappear and he is cured. Sam comes up with a plan to cure all of the rabids, and starts luring them into holy fire traps, curing them.
Dean and Crowley find Amara in a crib, and when Dean goes in for a closer look, he realizes that she has the Mark of Cain on her shoulder. They look for Jenna and find her in her grandmother's room. She is different, and Crowley reveals that she no longer has a soul; Amara consumed it. She attacks Dean, and they fight, until Crowley kills her. Dean tells Crowley that he thinks Amara is the Darkness, and they argue, which ends with Dean pinning Crowley to the wall by stabbing an angel blade through his hand. He goes back to where he'd left Amara, but she has disappeared, as has Crowley.
The Winchesters return to the Bunker where they find Castiel on the floor in a terrible state, pleading with them for help.
Meanwhile, on a street somewhere, Amara, who has grown into a child, is seen walking along a sidewalk wearing a pink dress. A black van pulls up next to her. Crowley gets out, opens the sliding door to reveal a kidnapped family, and asks her if she would like some "candy." Her face breaks out into a smile.
Characters[]
Main Cast[]
- Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester
- Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester
- Misha Collins as Castiel
- Mark Sheppard as Crowley
Recurring Cast[]
Guest Stars[]
Co-Stars[]
- Gracyn Shinyei as The Darkness
- Emily Swallow as The Darkness (archive footage, uncredited)
- Lisa Berry as Billie
- Albert Nicholas as Jonah
- Dylan Archambault as Efram
- Laci J. Mailey as Jenna Nickerson
- Christine Willes as Jenna's grandmother
- Trevor Roberts as George
- Mercedes Gendron as Rabid #1
- Dana Stoutenburg as Rabid #2
- Joel Montgrand as Rabid #3
Featured Supernatural Beings[]
- Angels (Efram, Jonah, Hannah)
- Crossroad Demon (Crowley)
- Horseman (Death, mentioned only)
- Primordial Entities (The Darkness; God, mentioned only)
- Rabids (George, Sam Winchester, Chapel Rabids; Rabid Road Crew, corpse)
- Reaper (Billie)
- Seraph (Castiel)
Errors[]
- Castiel should not have survived the torture at the hands of Efram and Jonah. He was stabbed through the stomach by an angel blade, which has always proven fatal to an angel in the past.
- This may be due to his status as a seraphim, a higher class of angels, who have proven to be more resilient than run-of-the-mill angels. This can be compared to Crowley, a powerful crossroads demon and the king of Hell, surviving being stabbed through the stomach with the demon-killing knife, an injury that has killed weaker demons.
- Castiel questions Hannah on how she was able to locate him. However, it was mentioned by Castiel in Torn and Frayed that the sound of an angel's scream gives other angels a sense of direction on locating that angel.
Trivia[]
- The episode was watched by 1.86 million viewers and got a 0.8 rating.
- The episode shares its title with the finale of the first season of the HBO series True Detective.
- Sam discovers that the cure to the condition of the Rabid infection is fire from holy oil, and that Rabids are drawn to noise and are vulnerable to electric shocks.
- It is revealed that the Darkness builds her strength up—and subsequently takes on older human forms—by consuming souls, human or otherwise.
- The episode makes a clear reference to the popular supernatural comedy film Ghostbusters during the phone call between Dean and Jenna. There is also a clear reference to Scooby Doo and Gang when Dean and Crowley are sneaking through the halls of the house.
- This episode marks the first time Sam has prayed directly to God himself for help, as opposed to Castiel or other angels.
- Crowley has an extensive network of contacts throughout the Catholic Church, to be notified of exorcism requests for demonic possessions not sanctioned by him.
- Reapers are now seeking vengeance against the Winchesters for the death of their master.
- As of Season 12, no Reaper has sought vengeance yet.
- The Bunker is still in the state it was in when the Stynes broke in and attempted to burn the library, but the bodies are gone.
- True to form, Dean (unknowingly) helped the Darkness on her path to regaining her power.
- The song that Billie was singing, Oh Death, was the same song that was playing during Death's first appearance on the series (Two Minutes to Midnight).
- The CW's official summary for the episode mistakenly states that Jenna Nickerson is a nurse instead of a police officer.
- This episode marks the first time someone mentions the Empty. Billie mentions it when talking with Sam. Billie states that when the Winchesters die, she will throw them into the Empty so that they can never be resurrected again.
- The video that Sam plays on his phone to lure an infected man is a clip from the movie The Night of the Hunter (1955).
- The clip is of the movie's main character—Harry Powell—monologuing about good vs evil, and the Mark of Cain.
- The character—based off of a real serial killer—is pretending to be preacher, so that he can exploit and kill children; much like Crowley in this episode.
Quotes[]
- Efram: (To Castiel) The way I see it, whenever you have to choose between Heaven and the Winchesters, you choose them. Every. Time.
- Dean: Who knows what was in that giant, crazy fart?
- Billie: It's over.
- Sam: What's over?
- Billie: You and Dean, dying and coming back again and again. The old Death thought it was funny. But now there's one hard, fast rule in this Universe: what lives, dies. So the next time you or your brother bite it, well, you're not going to Heaven or Hell. One of us—and, Lord, I hope it's me—we're gonna make a mistake and toss you out into the Empty. And nothing comes back from that.
- Crowley: Oh Dean. Adorable little Dean. I want that child, and I get what I want. You and Sam don't understand, I'm not your bloody sidekick! We've had some good times, so I'm gonna give you one chance—just one—to walk out that door, or I'm gonna take you apart, atom by atom. Do you understand?
- Dean: Listen, Velma, this isn't the Scooby Gang, okay? So either shut up, or get out.
- Crowley: Easy, tiger, just trying to help. (To himself) I'm way more of a Daphne.
International Titles[]
- German: Die Leere der Finsternis (The Emptiness of the Darkness)
- Hungarian: Lélektelenül (Soullessly)
- Portuguese (Brazil): Sem Forma e Vazia (Formless and Empty)