Winchester-Journals.net :: Episode 3x09

Episode 3x09 - Malleus Maleficarum

Vital Statistics

Original Air Date: 31st January 2008
Production Code: 3T6909
Writer: Ben Edlund
Director: Robert Singer

Official Episode Description

Sam and Dean travel to Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and discover a coven of witches that has killed two people. Ruby warns the brothers to stay away as the demon controlling these witches is very powerful and will surely kill them. Ignoring her plea, Sam and Dean go in after the coven and confront the head witch, who reveals Ruby's past.

Summary

Coming Soon

Notes

Malleus Maleficarum was a treatise on witches written in 1486. The main purpose of the treatise is to refute any arguments against the existence of witches and to provide details of how to deal with them.
Ruby explains that all the demons she has met (which does not necessarily mean all demons) were once humans. It is revealed that she was a human witch during the time of the plague.
This was the first time that Dean met Ruby.

Cultural References

So are we looking for some craggy old Blair bitch in the woods?
A reference to the movie The Blair Witch Project which was filmed as a faux docmentary about a group of student filmmakers hunting for The Blair Witch.
It’s like Fatal Attraction all over again.
Referring to the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction in which a spurned lover kills a pet rabbit, leaving it boiling on the stove to be found.
You’re the shortbus.
“Shortbus” is an insult implying someone is mentally challenged. It arises from the use of buses, smaller than normal school buses, used to take children who are intellectually handicapped to special schools or classes.
Nice dic work, Magnum
Thomas Magnum was a private investigator in the 1980's show Magnum P.I.. The term "dic" is short for detective - private detectives were often known as private dics.
That’s what happened when you get voted off the island.
A reference to the system of contestant elimination on the reality TV show Survivor.
What did you think it was? Make believe? Positive thinking? The Secret?
The Secret is a self help film and book, which claims to teach people who to attract good things into their lives.
You really telling me you threw your chips in with Abbott and Costello here?
Abbott and Costello were slapstick comedians popular in the first half of the twentieth century.
I saw Hellraiser, I get the gist.
Hellraiser was a 1987 horror movie, based on a novel by Clive Barker