It's Supernatural Season 13, Episode 15: A Most Holy Man, and we have another heist, but this time it's noir and holy. It's a furta sacra! Find out what that means when Liz dives into the lore behind stolen holy relics, including the theft of the holy prepuce! Not the holy prepuce!

Research Links

• How Jesus' foreskin became one of Christianity's most-coveted relics — and then disappeared | CBC Radio
• 8 Tales of Body Parts Belonging to Jesus - Listverse
• The Holy Foreskin: The Story of Christianity's Strangest Relic - Medievalists.net
• Relics and Reliquaries in Medieval Christianity - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Christian Relics That Are Still Missing
• The Very Holy and Very Lost Foreskin of Jesus Christ
• Holy Foreskin! A Brief History of Stolen Catholic Relics
• Relic of St Carlo Acutis stolen from parish days after canonisation
• Thieves Return Relic of Precious Blood of Jesus Stolen From Medieval French Church – EWTN Great Britain
• When Monks Went Undercover to Steal Relics - JSTOR Daily

On this week's episode of Devil's Trap podcast, we've got some chicanery and foreskin cruncher.

Let's do this.

Welcome to this week's episode of Devil's Trap podcast.

I'm Diana.

I'm Liz.

And we're going to talk about season 13, episode 15, a most holy Man.

Not like holes with an e. No,.

Not like a Weasley.

Not like a Weasley or a Swiss cheese person.

There you go.

What have you been up to, Liz?

Oh, so I've been prepping.

My mom's getting things ready to decorate my the big house for Halloween.

So it's finally like pulling the, pulling the trigger on, on things and, and an order is you know, just consuming and, but you know, trying to consume wisely and to figure out like what, what would be cute and what can be crafted maybe.

And so I've been and went to so a couple of the, a couple of the stores and got some things in there.

But the most like the biggest score I think was I got this witch from, from Michael's and she was on sale for 12.99 and I think that was a bonus.

Like yeah, it was a good deal.

It was that I saw like I was looking on Essie for, for flower arrangements because I'm not good at flower arrangements but really I'm not good at buying them.

Like buying the flowers to put in the arrangements.

Like where do you get them?

I don't understand how that works.

Like where do you keep all of them?

Like it just seems like a thing.

So I was looking on Etsy for them and I saw that witch and somebody's like centerpiece.

I'm like haha.

Now I can just buy a centerpiece and shove that witch in it and like be like there you tada.

Arrangement complete.

Arrangement complete.

So you know, ordered some wreaths and some, some witches for the house.

I'm excited for those things to, to come and get things decorated and, and we had a spiral workshop at the, at the gym yesterday.

And so spiral, aerial spiral looks like a giant corkscrew hanging from the ceiling.

So that was really fun to play around.

And they, that's a much compared to my lira.

The, the, the rings are much wider.

They're like a 1 1/2 inches compared to like a half an inch.

So it makes it like a huge difference as you're like hanging on it.

And it bounces a lot too.

Like Lyra's kind of bounce, but not the same way, but it really bounces like a Corkscrew.

And they have.

It's like a spring.

It is.

And so they.

We had two different ones.

There was one that had, like, like very like, big differences between the.

The spring bars, I guess.

And that.

That was not great for, like, my tiny T. Rex arms.

And then there was one that was much tighter and that was much more fun.

And.

But so walking, like, learning how to walk up them was really fun.

And walk back down.

Which is.

Which is scarier than walking up because you're walking up, you're like.

And then you're like, you're walking down.

You're like, oh, no.

You had to put your weight, like, in the back of, like, you.

You stick your butt out as you're, like walking down.

But it's just.

It's not a natural thing.

And then you're like, there.

Here comes the ground.

And.

Yeah, but it was a fun thing to do.

And like, hanging from it at least.

Like, my bruises are being hidden by my tattoos this time, so they just like, really kind of blended in.

I thought they.

They were.

At least for once they were well placed.

There you go.

Instead of just completely, like all over,.

Instead of me just looking like I just got the crap beat out of me.

Yeah, I normally do.

Like, at least this time I was like, oh, like, it just looks like I've got, like, some really bad shading.

And.

What have you been up to?

Pretty lowkey.

Because I was fighting a.

Fighting a cough.

I got a little summer cold for the most part.

Pretty low key, so.

But I did m. Make Babe watch Twilight and Eclipse.

Right?

No, New Moon.

So we watched Twilight and New Moon this weekend, so that was fun for me.

We had a little time in the pool, ate some tacos and then had a.

Did a fancy dinner and then just kind of hung out.

Went to a town hearth with friends and that was nice.

Had bougie steak.

I liked it.

But yeah, steak is good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's about it.

Say that's about it.

It was a nice little.

It was chill, but, like, we did some stuff, some social stuff, but nothing crazy, so getting ready for a lot of busyness, so it was a good way to do it.

Cool.

And there isn't much happening in the world of Supernatural.

The guys are just chugging along with their projects, so that's good for them.

And sometimes no news is good news.

But new projects coming out sometime shortly.

This episode, though, so we're about halfway through season 13.

So this is episode 15, which I guess would make us over halfway.

She last directed from season 12.

She did episode 19, the future.

And this season she did episode 12 or various and sundry villains.

And this was the first episode to be co written by showrunners Andrew Dabb and Bob Singer.

And two of the characters, Richard Greenstreet and Margaret Astor, are named after the famous actors of the era, Cindy Greenstreet and Mary Asteroid.

Okay, so if you think about it with that lens, you know, it definitely had like that flare through it for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it definitely has like crime drama, noir mob vibes to this whole episode.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So our recap.

It starts off with Mary punching Lucifer in the face, which is always enjoyable.

Then Apocalypse World, they need Lucifer's grace.

They need four basic ingredients to open the rift and bring everybody home.

And then we're ready to start in Malta at the Holy Sisters of Malta Monastery.

And we've got a dude sneaking around the monastery looking super sketchy.

And he goes into a room full of relics and we see a skull in a case.

And he breaks the case and takes the skull and gets busted by a nun.

She's standing there waiting for him and he knocks her out.

And they ask forgiveness and leaves.

Scoozy.

Scoozy.

Yeah, it's.

It's bad luck, I think, to probably punch out a nun.

But he did it anyways.

Yeah.

Or steal from them.

I don't know.

Or steal from nuns, probably.

So we go to the bunker and Dean and Sam are there.

Dean wants to know Sam has found anything.

Like on the Seal of Solomon.

And Sam says he's been digging through the lore, but he hasn't found anything.

But Cass is in Syria.

Yeah.

Dodging bullets, looking for the fruit from the Tree of Life.

So apparently the Tree of Life is in Syria, or at least the fruit is there.

I'm not sure which of that implied.

Yeah.

And.

But they don't know where Lucifer is at this point, so they.

The last thing they're after is the blood of the Most Holy Man.

And what does that mean?

It could be a saint, we don't know.

So.

And Dean is just kind of like, what the.

Like, why?

Like, really?

This is like what we've got to do.

But Sam has discovered that there is a huge market for ancient religious relics.

And it's online.

Yes.

The Internet.

It's not just for porn anymore.

Yeah.

And really, like, you could probably just buy most of these artifacts on ebay.

And Sam, though, thinks he has found a legit person on the web selling artifacts named Margaret Aster.

Like, why he's thinks this woman is legit.

Like, she had good reviews on her stands.

Like, yeah, she had, like.

Her Yelp page was stellar.

She had a good ebay rating.

Yeah.

So we cut to San Francisco, and we hear some loungy piano music and see a woman sipping a martini, which I did have one of those this weekend, and it was delicious.

And Sam and Dean join her because they.

And they're just gonna go right into it.

They sound like we're looking for rare religious artifacts.

And we heard you can help.

She's like, cool.

Who referred you?

And he's like, no one.

The Internet.

And she's like, this is like a personal business, but I'm also gonna flirt with you, Sam, because you're hot.

And when Sam realizes that she's hitting on him, he starts to return the favor.

And he is just like, oh, well, we're looking for the blood of a saint, and it's very important.

And she says that she might know one person, but dare, dare she give the name.

And she does.

And his name is Richard Green street, and he lives in Seattle.

And she can provide an introduction.

And that is it.

That's it.

But she advises caution.

And so we see Green, Richard Green street, eating a pastry very messily.

There is powdered sugar.

And I know it's really hard to eat a pastry with powdered sugar, but it's just not something you want to do in a meeting in general.

Right?

Like, it is a flex, though.

You're like, I understand.

Powder everywhere.

Fuck you.

Like, I'm not right.

I guess I don't give a fuck.

I'm just getting my pastry, bitch.

So.

But.

So there he is just eating his pastry.

And they introduce themselves as Sam and Dean Vaughn from Rhode Island.

Yeah.

Random.

And he's like, oh, do you know these twins in Newport?

And they're like, oh, yeah, we don't know.

We've heard of them.

And they're like, there are no twins.

You failed my test.

Dean's just like, fine.

I'm just gonna confess who we really.

Are, and we need the blood of a saint.

Ta da.

And he's like, oh, I've got some.

It's just very, very expensive.

Sam's like, it's for a worthy cause.

And he's like, I don't do worthy causes.

Jimmy, you were shot down because you are poor.

Yeah.

And he returns his donut, but he stops him and he says, you know what?

I can have some time for some chicanery.

Chicanery.

And so he's like, look, this piece that I really want just got stolen in Malta, and I think this mob boss got it.

So you steal it back, and then I will give you the blood.

Ta da.

Everybody's happy.

We all win.

Except.

Except that it's the skull of St. Peter and that it needs to be stolen from the mob, and then they'll get the blood.

And apparently the blood is from St. Ignatius.

Yeah.

And there is a rumor that the skull is being turned over tomorrow, but they don't know where, and they leave.

And Dean rationalizes them stealing and he says this really great line that's, look, this isn't a perfect world we're trying to save.

Okay?

And it's I.

If I'm not perfect trying to save it, then so be it.

Yeah.

Which is some.

Some bars.

And I really appreciated that.

And there's no perfect time for lore, but this is a perfect time to fit it in.

We're gonna.

We're gonna talk about some lore here, and we're gonna talk about some relics.

And you know that relics were once so commonly stolen that the accounts became their own genre known as firtha sakra.

And medieval monks on pilgrimage would stop wherever they found a saint's relic, hear tales of how often that saint was and the miracles that the relics had granted.

And then they would steal it and take it home to their own parish, where then everybody would celebrate it and worship the new relic.

There are over 100 counts just through the Middle Ages of relics being taken from one place to another.

So relics can be man made items like pieces of fabric or shoes, or they can be body parts like ears or nipples.

Remember Saint Elizabeth and her stolen nipples?

The holiest relics are those, though, that are associated with Christ and his mother.

So that would be something like the baby teeth of Jesus.

I don't know why that cracks me up, but it just does.

Like, another relic of the baby teeth of Jesus exists.

So pieces of the true cross or the virgin's veil.

In the Middle Ages, selling saints was lucrative, especially because a body can be divided into so many parts.

So you can really get your bang from a buck out of a corpse, like a hand like that's.

Not just like one hand.

No, sir.

There are five fingers, and each of those fingers can be divided into little bitty parts.

Right.

So, yeah, you can get so.

And then you can just carry that around in a tiny little sack.

So the biggest pro.

And so they also said that the saint was equally present in every piece of their body.

So it doesn't matter how small a piece of a body the saint is.

Right.

It's just as holy as the whole thing.

Yeah.

So the biggest profit, obviously, came from stealing relics and then selling them.

Right.

Because you don't have to pay for anything.

It's free.

And then you just.

You profit off of what you do.

And that's fueled the job market for professional thieves.

And this may be because of some of the available source material, but it seems relic thieves sold to the upper class Abbots, bishops, and kings, Especially in the earlier middle ages.

In the later middle ages, Personal relic collections became popular among the lower levels of society.

I am sure some poor woman was forced to look at her boyfriend's dead saint's toe.

He was like, oh, barbara, come here and see what I got from the basilica to this day.

And she was like, oh, thanks, john.

It's great.

Just weirdos have existed throughout time, you know, they did it.

Yeah.

In the 9th century, Deus Dona, the most famous relic supplier, Was organized periodic caravans that crossed the alps in spring and made the rounds of monastic fairs held on feast days.

D and his associates would pilfer relics from roman cemeteries during the winter months.

So you.

They would just go.

And that's how they would get their relics.

It's like, oh, look, here is so and so is buried here.

We'll just take them.

So his specialty was roman saints, Unlike frankish thieves, who took roman saints and saints from far off lands.

And then if you were like an anglo saxon king, they wanted saints from continental europe.

So they didn't want just the roman saints.

They wanted people who were like, we wanted someone who was killed in england, you know?

Yeah.

Something a hometown saint.

Relics would become commonly used throughout the middle ages.

If your crops were failing, take a relic to them.

Before bibles were ubiquitous, People used to swear oaths on the relics.

And every religious house, Every monastery Needed to need its own relics for all these purposes and to attract pilgrims, because pilgrims love to journey to a good relic.

So there was just, you know, you wanted more of them to come to your church because that meant more money.

In the 12th century, Bishop Hugh of lincoln Literally bit the hand of mary magdalene, A relic kept by the monks of the Abbey of Fecamp to get a piece of her.

He justified it by saying the relic was no more holy than the Eucharist, which he ate every Sunday.

Then he stole the PC bit off.

He just put it in his pocket and left with it Wild.

So one of the more infamous cases of relic theft is that of Saint Foy.

A monk went undercover for 10 years at the monastery where her relics were stored before stealing her skull to take back to Conch, a town that was located on a pilgrimage route but nobody ever stopped at because they didn't have any relics.

10 Years.

10 Years.

He was in there for 10 years and worked his way up to became till he became the relic keeper.

And then finally, once he became the relic keeper, he's like, peace, I'm taking the skull.

He peaced out.

And then they had to build a bigger church because everybody was coming to comp to see this.

They had a safe boy.

And nobody thought this was like.

They were just like, okay, we get why you stole it.

It was a pretty cool thing.

So now we're going to talk about a potentially sensitive subject, and no pun intended, and that is the foreskin of Jesus Christ, AKA the holy prepuce, or propuzio in Italian.

The idea is, is that Jesus as a Jewish boy was circumcised when he was 8 days old, like Jewish boys are.

And in the Middle Ages, people developed this idea that his foreskin might still exist on earth, and they developed a devotion to it.

So according to Ph.D. ph.D.

Candidate James White to CBC Radio, and according to the apocryphal Arabic infancy gospel, the old Hebrew woman took the foreskin.

Others say she took the navel string, which I'm going to assume means umbilical cord.

Yeah, so they say, though the old Hebrew woman took the foreskin and preserved it in an alabaster box of old oil of spring by canard.

This is that alabaster box which Mary the sinner procured, AKA Mary Magdalene, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ and wiped it off with the hairs of her head.

And then Jesus gave her his foreskin to put in the box like you do.

I'm not sure how it got leg.

So, like, I get the box, I get having the box with the oil in it that was in the hair.

But where you put the foreskin in it is where I start.

I start wonder why.

Where did you.

How like, did he was.

Did Jesus just keep it around until I'm just Like here, here babe.

Like is this is something I wanted to offer you.

I have so many questions.

Yeah, like where was it?

So the emperor of chart, the Emperor Charlemagne, is supposed to have given Jesus's foreskin to Pope Leo III as a reward for crowning him Holy Roman Emperor.

Charlemagne either received the foreskin from the Byzantine Empress Irene or an angel brought it to him after he prayed, depending on which version of the story you believe.

The foreskin was reportedly sent to Catherine Voila.

In England so she would get pregnant with Henry V's baby.

How to know whether or not it was a legit foreskin?

Anthropologist Eric Silverman wrote a common test for foreskin authenticity was taste.

A physician supervised by a priest sampled the skin for the flavor of genuine holiness.

The taster was called a croque purpose or foreskin cruncher.

Though his source may be rooted in 19th century Anti Catholic rhetoric.

Huh.

That may be some horrible, horrible anti Catholic things, but it's also a foreskin cruncher is my new insult for everybody.

That's fair.

That's fair.

So no less than 18 towns and 31 churches have claimed to have possession of the sacred ring of flesh.

The town of Calcutta, Italy is said to have acquired the holy propuzio after a thief buried it in his prison cell.

What was discovered 30 years later after its discovery, freak storms occurred and perfume miss engulfed the town.

Kind of like all the omens in the show.

Right.

Like whenever something like, oh, so they found it and then all these weird things happen.

Yeah.

Those who came to venerate at the foreskin were given a 10 year indulgence.

So the people came, they were like, oh yeah, you get 10 years off your sins and I get to see this foreskin.

Right.

Lines stretched from the church door to beyond the walls of the town.

And Calcutta would parade the foreskin in his jeweled case throughout the streets every year on January 1, the Feast of the circumcision of our Lord.

Or that was the day that it was celebrated on.

And it became a well known and the church was hearing about it.

And the rumor is that the local priest who had the foreskin in a shoebox in his closet, gave it to the Vatican.

What?

In a shoebox?

He had it in a shoebox.

Okay, but you see, the reason he gave it to the Vatican maybe is the church he really wanted people to stop talking about and probably for God's sake, to stop parading about the foreskin of Jesus.

Finally, during the Second Vatican Council or Vatican ii, the cardinals removed the Feast of the Circumcision from the church calendar.

So it is no longer the feast of the circus.

Unless you are in the.

The Greek.

I believe the Greek Orthodox Church still celebrates the feast of Circumcision.

They're the ones who still does, but okay.

Of course there are those who say that that wasn't the real foreskin in the first place, because the foreskin would have ascended to heaven along with Jesus when he died.

So there is a whole quandary of a question there.

If you think about that one, would the foreskin have become part of Jesus and gone up with him?

Who knows?

Another reason way why that may not have been the real foreskin was there is also in the sanctum sanctorum, a cross of the purest gold.

And that one is said to not only have the foreskin of Jesus in it, but also his umbilical cord.

So again, the navel string.

Yeah.

Some side notes about the foreskin.

Agnes Bland Begin her name.

This is a great name.

Bland begin.

12.

Told her confessor.

She began to think about the foreskin of Christ, where it may be located.

And behold, soon she felt with the greatest sweetness on her tongue a little piece of skin like the skin of an egg, which she swallowed.

After she swallowed it, she again felt the little skin on her tongue with sweetness as before.

And again she swallowed.

And this happens about a hundred times,.

Huh?

Yeah.

There was also the Catholic mystic Saint Catherine of Siena, who made.

Who had a vision in the 14th century that Jesus put a ring on her finger made of his foreskin.

He put a ring on it, but it was.

It was foreskin wild.

I don't even know what else to say.

That's all I'm gonna say tonight.

That's all I got.

So modern thieves are still on the hunt for relics.

And the following two stories may have satisfied the blood of the most holy man quest.

Now, why they were like, pope John Paul, would you like to put your blood in this vial?

Apparently that happened at some point.

Yeah.

Like, when did that part happen?

That's interesting.

And how did, like, how did they take it?

Was it like.

Did they.

Did they do it, like, with a syringe or did they do, like a full on.

Did they have a knife?

Like, what.

Where?

Why?

Was it like.

Yeah.

Was it like a draw?

Like a blood draw situation?

Or like a pointy.

Like, did stop.

Like, I know.

Did, like, does he give.

Does the Pope give blood?

So many questions.

All right, so the thief was identified by security cameras.

By the time he was arrested, he was no longer in possession of the vial, and it is still considered missing, likely already sold to a private collector, which.

Which is even.

Even Weir sitting around with, like, this is my Pope John Paul II's blood.

Like, what do you do with it?

Do you, like, pray?

I don't know.

It's strange.

Legend said that vials containing drops of Jesus's blood were hidden in a fig tree in Jerusalem and then floated across the ocean and were found in France.

Once though, the thieves found out what they had, they decided to give it back.

They were just like, this is not a great thing to steal.

This is not what we meant to take.

This is a little much.

So they emailed the Dutch investigator, Arthur Brandt, who is a specialist in recovering high value artifacts and art.

He's like that.

He has that really cool job.

Yeah, well, that was my dream job.

But it's.

It's a cool, like, it's a TV show dream job for sure.

You know, just like, what.

Oh, you collect.

Like, he, like, deals with all, like, those super, like, fancy things that are stolen and, like, helps to try and get them back for insurance companies, like, on high potential.

There was one of those guys on high potential.

And then there was, like, Leverage, that show.

Okay, so the thieves offered to either give the reliquary to brand or they were going to destroy it.

So he agreed to take it.

And it just showed up on his doorstep in a cardboard box.

Huh.

So that is the story of.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, well, yeah, that is the.

Just the tip again, no pun intended, of the relics that have been stolen.

Oh, I just knocked everything over.

Oh, my gosh.

You got me on that one.

You got Me.

Okay, well, now that I made a mess.

Here we go.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's something.

Fun.

Fun.

We all learned a little something tonight.

We did.

All right, so Becca's Supernatural Land.

Yeah.

Speaking of supernatural land, Dean asked a girl what she is reading.

Yeah.

And we've got a song by Johnny Mercer playing.

It's called Accentuate the Positive.

And this chick.

And this chick is reading a book called Guarded by Demons.

And it's a book on supernatural.

And, you know, this is.

Honestly, it's just really funny that, you know, she will one.

She's, you know, she's into the supernatural, and he should sit down, and he can't.

But that she's not a demon.

It's just so funny that she's not, like, with all their leg.

What?

Like, she's just.

Just into the supernatural and not an actual demon.

So, anyhow, so he doesn't get to flirt with this girl anymore.

He has to go sit down with Sam, who has somehow found Malta's flight records.

Yeah.

What.

How does he have this.

I don't understand what has happened.

He's master hacker, and he found five people who went to Malta.

So all of five people flew to Malta.

That's from.

From Seattle.

But still, that's also like.

That seems very inefficient flight flights.

Like, why they weren't even.

They would not run that flight anymore.

That would not happen.

I don't think there's a flight from Malta to Seattle.

No, that also.

Seattle.

Yeah.

There's not a direct.

Which is why it was like, there's five people.

So I guess he, like.

Did he trace, like, people who.

I don't.

What?

Sam, I don't buy this, okay?

Suspending belief.

Suspending belief.

Yeah, for sure.

You got to suspend belief there.

So.

But they have found that some dude named Antonio Melee checked.

Has a checkered past, and he has checked into the Patricia Hotel, conveniently downtown, right by where they're at.

So they're gonna go there and find this guy.

Yeah, it's really cool hotel.

And in the lobby, Sam, like, shoulder check.

Gets shoulder checked by some dude on their way to go to Antonio's room.

And they find the room very quickly, and the door is open, and the room is thrashed.

Thrashed.

Yeah.

And the old.

It's a really old tv, and it's on static I just thought that was interesting and kind of funny.

Yeah.

And there's a dead body.

And we're presuming this is Antonio.

Yeah.

Somebody is behind them, though, with a gun.

And he flashes a badge at them, tosses cuffs at them, tells them to handcuff themselves to the radiator, which they do, and then start.

Sam starts asking some pointed questions, like, wait a minute.

What department are you with?

Right?

Like, are.

Are you even a cop?

What is happening here?

But they still handcuff themselves.

This guy's waving a gun around while he searches the room.

So, I mean, I guess it makes sense to listen to, but it's definitely sus.

And so they're the guys finally, like.

Like leaves laughing.

And then they're like, this badge looked fake, but the gun looked real.

So let's figure out what's.

What's happening here.

He's gonna come back, but Sam is like a boy scout and has cuff keys on him, ready to go.

Which also felt like, why is Dean surprised by this?

Yeah, and why don't you have some.

Or a lock pick?

What is wrong with you?

So as they are leaving the building, the man that Sam bumped into earlier is watching them from behind a newspaper.

And the real cops, though, have shown up while the boys walk away down the street discussing what just happened.

And Dean wants to know, like, why was Carpeti whack the guy before he finds the skull?

What?

It's mob talk.

I'm gonna say whack if I want to.

Right?

And then they are going around the corner, and who is standing by, baby, but Bunch of mob guys waiting on him, which is not great.

And so we've got.

One of the guys is like, Mr. Scarpati wants to see you.

It's not a request.

That's my bad, mom.

And they're gonna drive, baby.

What?

Dana's not thrilled about.

No, I wouldn't be either.

So also, the other henchman dude is totally pointing his gun terribly.

It's, like, way bad form.

I'm not like, a person that, like, judges form on, like, on TV very much, but it's like, almost, like, comical.

Like it was off putting.

That's my hot take.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it was a poor, poor mob guy.

Maybe he's not good.

He's not a good enforcer.

And so they pull away, but the guy from the hotel is watching them.

Yeah.

So they.

We cut to Mr. Scarbotti, who is petting a Persian cat and listening to opera music.

Because we're going full stereotype.

Yes, we are.

And they did some checking on the Winchesters, who officially died.

So if they get whacked now.

Yeah, but he just wants to talk because he knows that they made a deal with Green street.

And he is a scoundrel and has no respect for the artifacts.

But Scarpati is a good Catholic, and he just wants them to have a good home.

He.

It's important for him to have relics.

Yeah.

And I like that.

And he's got, like, a few things on his shelf, including what appears to be a pope's hat.

Very interesting collection.

But I collect a pope's hat.

I mean,.

Can you get a popes hat?

Maybe.

I don't know.

What happens to the pope hat?

I have no idea.

Do they sell pope hats?

I'll just look that up.

They gave out foam ones at the White Sox game a couple weeks ago because the Pope is from Chicago.

Chicago.

Yes.

And they.

At the game, they gave out, like, foam pope hats for the crowd to wear.

I kind of want one.

All right.

There's your.

There's your.

There's your pope hat trivia that I have.

That's all I got.

But anyway, so Dean's like, technically, the relics had a home and you stole it.

And they're.

They laugh, but they're also like, no, why are you making a deal with Green Street?

And Sam's like, he has something we need, and the skull was the price.

And so Scar Potty's like, well, that's too bad.

I paid half of the price of the skull up front, and the balance is due on delivery.

So now the skull is missing, and I already paid half of it, so it rightfully belongs to me.

That's his math.

That's a good math.

I was like, okay.

And he's like, so this is what we're going to do.

You go get the skull, I'll pay you a finder's fee, and then you can just buy whatever you want from Green Street.

And it's a deal.

Yeah.

And they're like, well, what if we can't.

Can't find the skull?

Yeah.

And he said that failure is not an option.

Oh.

So they go back to this hotel because Dean's sure that something is in this hotel room, and.

But the cops are blocking the door.

So Dean Fulls pulls the fire alarm.

Actually, like, put a cop in a crime scene, Right?

And supposed to.

Yes.

But then Dean's gonna pull the fire alarm, and everybody evacuates the building.

So Sam's gonna go search the room while everybody's outside, and he finds a slip of paper With a number written on it.

And then the dude that's been like, stalking them clocks him in the head with a phone.

Tbi.

Yeah.

And we see him walking out of the hotel carrying a case and are then now he's being stalked by the fake cop dude.

And.

Yeah.

So we know that something bad's happening.

But our Dean finds Sam unconscious, though.

And it's kind of funny because, like, we actually get the first time.

I think Dean's worried about Sam's head injuries.

Yes.

Sam has been, you know, if you're counting, has been knocked out five times this season.

Oh, God, you're right.

That is a lot.

Yeah.

And this is the fandom at this point was like, starting to point out that we were.

Everyone's slightly getting worried about how they.

Many times Sam has been rendered unconscious.

Yeah, it's.

It's a little concerning at this point, for sure.

I think they say, like, three concussions is your max.

Before, like, things are like, real bad.

So.

Yeah.

I don't know if there's a magic number, but I know that getting a lot of head injuries is bad.

It's not five.

No, that's not good.

So they.

They hear a noise.

They exit this hotel, and they hear a noise in the alley.

And they find the hotel guy is knocked out.

Yeah.

And he wakes up as Dean is going through his wallet.

And Sam's like, where's that piece of paper?

And he's like, he took it.

And then they realize, so.

So whoever knocked this guy out took the slip of paper from him.

And they discovered this unconscious dude is Father Luca Camieri.

Camillary.

Can't even say it now, Father.

You're gonna say it with a really offensive accent.

Then you can say it.

And then you can say, I think so.

So he's searching for the skull of St. Peter.

And the nuns have asked him to get it back.

A.

And he was gonna buy it with a suitcase full of cash.

He's just poor.

This poor man is just walking around with a suitcase full of cash.

Yeah, because it's.

It's.

This is so special to his parish.

And so he's like, my village is small.

And then they stole this, and he vanished.

And now Mile is dead.

And you know what to do.

So that's why I hit Sam.

Because the relic means everything to his congregation.

And now he's failed in his mission to get it back.

And Dean's like, the world's a screwed up place, padre.

What you gonna do about it?

And Father Lucas says, change it.

I know.

Yeah.

And Then it's not like.

And he gives, like, a whole.

Like.

Yes.

This whole, like, again, just like, a really good writing, really good speech here about, like.

It's not about luck and it's about effort.

And just basically that you shouldn't use the world's failings as your excuse.

And that you shouldn't use it to give a bad manpower because the world's not perfect.

And that you should try and improve things in whatever way you can because the world will never be perfect.

But if good men do good things, that can be better.

Yeah.

Oh, Father Luca.

I know.

I know.

I'm like.

I wanna.

Can we just listen to Father Luca speech every morning?

Here we go.

So he's great.

I would listen to his sermon.

So.

So.

But he is just gonna go home without the skull.

Yeah.

And Sam's like, no, we're gonna get the skull and we're gonna get it for you.

And Dean's like, well, hold on, hold on, Sam, sidebar, sidebar.

And Sam's like, we have to find it anyways.

And he's like, yeah, but we have to give it to Green street to get his Jesus juice, as he calls it.

And then Sam's like, no, we're just gonna do a double cross.

Double cross.

Well, you know, he's like, I've already.

He looked up a bunch of info in this short period of time on Father Luca.

And apparently he's got, like, you know, two decades of charity work.

He's like, He's a good guy, and I believe him.

And Sam's like, but we don't owe him.

He sucker punched you.

And Sam's like, no, but what would you do if someone stole your Impala?

And Dean just, like, glazes over.

He cannot process this potential possibility.

Yeah, he just goes to murder, then wait, Torture followed by murder.

And if I can't have it, nobody can.

And Dean has just gone away.

And this was a lot of.

I think, was improvised by Jensen.

Jensen here.

But, yeah, it was a good way to get.

Get an empathy thing going there.

But it was also just a really good acting bit.

Yes.

So they are driving and trying to think about what to do.

And the priestess memorize.

Memorize the numbers from.

He's a good memory.

Yeah, he's got a good memory, apparently.

And Sam somehow has a WI FI signal in the Impala.

And he has his laptop open and he puts it in the web.

And he somehow finds out by putting that number in the web that it's a tracking number for a package from Malta.

Because that's how shipping works.

I mean, it kind of does now.

You can just click on a number and it knows what shipping service it is now.

But I don't think you could then.

I mean, it maybe could tell you, like, where it was from, but it wouldn't, like, I don't know.

Yeah, it wouldn't tell you where it was from.

It would say, like, it was a UPS tracking number.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Yeah.

So we cut immediately to our fake cop at the shipping store front with the tracking slip.

And he walks outside carrying a box.

So Sam and Dean and Father Luca watch him and then followed him to.

A warehouse because, of course, they're an abandoned warehouse.

And then another car pulls up, and out from the back comes.

Sans girlfriend.

Yeah.

And then Margaret is there, and she's there with fake cop.

And they go in the warehouse and Scarpetti and his goons are there.

Yeah.

And she's really mean to fake cop.

He's like, yeah, there's a lot of complications.

Like, that's what I pay you for.

And he's like, I need a raise.

And she's like, no.

And so anyway, so we've got all these goons, and he called.

So Mr. Scarpati is calling out Margaret for screwing him over because he's like, I already paid for that fucking skull.

Why do you have it now?

Why am I going to pay you for it?

And she's like, oh, I just cornered the market, and obviously she's not going to honor the price that he.

The balance of what he owed, so.

And if Scarpati won't pay whatever she wants him to pay, Green street will, because he's here, too.

We have a bidding war.

So our fake cop pulls.

Opens the box and pulls out a velvet bag and shows everybody the skull.

He touches it.

Are you supposed to do that?

Are you supposed to be like, I.

Isn't this thing fragile?

Like, I'm concerned.

Like, I mean, I've been like, I've held some skulls and there's.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes they're pretty, like, hefty pieces.

But this one is that old.

Does it not become fragile?

Should you just be, like, tossing around the skull of St. Peter, like, on.

The shaking in this box?

Should you, like, put some bubble wrap in that box?

Like, I'm really happy that it got there in one piece.

And the shipping company is really great, but it did not seem to be wrapped.

Not that, like, there wasn't, like, tissue paper in there or anything.

Nothing.

It was just, like, in the velvet bag.

Just Shaking around that box.

You know how weird that box would have felt carrying it?

Oh, man, it drives me nuts.

So they put it on the table and in there.

Now, in baby, though, Father Luca is telling Dean that he has faith that God will see us through.

Throat.

Yeah.

And Dean says he won't.

He really won't.

He's like.

He's like, I believe, and I know God doesn't give a damn about you, me, or anyone else.

So if you're expecting a miracle, good luck.

But Father Lucas got a good response.

He's like, I don't mean God's gonna reach down and protect us.

Of course not.

But we have to.

But we have to believe in good things, basically.

And he thinks that all good things are God's things, and what your brother is doing is a good thing.

And Dean's like, or maybe it's a stupid thing.

And Father Luca's like, you know what?

They can.

They can be both.

Sometimes they can be the same.

Yeah.

So Sam is being escorted loudly into the warehouse.

And Dean and Father Luca are listening via speakerphone to this.

And Sam's like, I'm not here to fight.

I've got a case of money.

I want to buy the skull, too.

So Margaret flirts with him again because she's got the hots for him.

Hobbs.

And.

But Green street and Scar Potty are pissed because they thought.

They both thought that Sam and Dean were working for them.

And Sam's like, I was working for me.

And so she was like, whatever.

I like him, and I like money.

So, everybody, here's a piece of paper.

Write down how much money you will pay for this skull.

And while that's happening, Dean and Father Luca are trying to enter the warehouse, too.

And Father Luca's job is to create a distraction, which he immediately tells one of the guards.

That's what he's doing.

That's pretty funny, because lying is a sin.

That's what he said.

But it was a good distraction.

It worked.

So they see a bunch of unconscious guards along the way.

And Dean's like, father Luca, you just need to stay out of the way and stay down.

And he's like, okay, I'll pray.

And Dean's like, cool, I've got the guns.

I'm going this way.

Yeah.

So.

And inside, they have all our numbers written down.

And fake cop is going to read the numbers out.

Reed street has bid zero.

Because he doesn't intend to pay Margaret.

Nope.

Because he's got the fake cop on his side now.

And he is going to have her killed.

Double cross.

He's like, I will give you $1 million right now, cash, if you kill her.

And he's.

And she's like, what the hell?

He's loyal to me for you.

A long time.

And he's like, I don't know.

You should have given me that raise.

And he shoots her.

Yeah.

And then a full on shootout starts.

Yeah.

Everybody pulls guns.

Green Street's hiding because.

With his little guard.

Because that's his guard.

Not little, but he has a guard.

So that's what he's doing.

Dean's in there.

Father Luca's outside praying.

We've got a Latin hymn playing.

Yep.

Scar Potti gets shot.

Fake cop's about to shoot Dean, but Father Luca runs in to stop him.

And he gets shot.

He gets shot by fake cop.

But then Sam shoots fake cop.

And Father Luca was just disgrace.

And it's fine.

And he's fine.

And now everybody is dead except for Green Street.

And Sam and Dean are like, what about that blood that you owe us?

He's like, it doesn't exist.

I lied.

It was a bit of chicanery.

Well, chicane this.

And Dean punches him in the face.

And then he gets arrested.

Yeah.

The cops take away Green Street.

Then we're at the Seattle airport, which is one of the few airports that I've ever missed a flight from.

And I had still get PTSD every time I. I go there.

And Sam and there are.

Sam and Dean are there to say goodbye to father.

See, I don't have a good.

I don't have a good experience at memory at that airport either.

It's just funny enough random.

So Father Luca is now going to be flying from Seattle to Malta with a skull.

Skull in a box.

What the U.S. customs, the.

Do you just like.

Does this just go through.

Declare that at tsa?

Like how does this work?

Okay, so I mean, I guess you would declare it when you got to.

To.

To your.

Where your nuns are.

Right.

Like I guess the item belongs here.

But how do you get it through the X ray?

You go through T.S.

I mean, I brought skulls through TSA before.

Anyways.

Human.

Not human.

No.

See, okay, so I don't know either way.

But he's like, how.

How do you.

Dean asks him though, before they leave.

How do you know that this is.

You know?

Don't you know?

Do.

Don't you know it's just a hunk of bone?

He's like, yes, but we all have to have faith in something.

Even if it's a hunk.

Of bone.

Yeah.

And Sam wants to know what in his bio.

An apostle, Apostolic proteinary.

Super.

Oh, my God, I thought I could say it.

Super Nunnery.

Super.

Super Numerary Supernumerary.

Yes.

Apostolic Proto notary supernumerary.

And what that means is a title the Pope gave him and a most holy man.

And this really is a purely honorary title bestowed upon priests by the Pope and is considered the highest grade of monsignor.

But all existing supernumerary protonotaries are allowed to keep their titles.

So before he goes, they're gonna need one more thing.

A vial of his blood.

So again, how are they doing this?

I mean, we go to the next scene, and however they did it was wrong because it's in this weird glass bottle with a cork, like a very porous cork.

And they're just shaking it around, shaking it around.

And Dean is happy, but Sam has butt face.

Yeah.

Because he's like, one down, three to go.

And Sam's like, all we do is play defense.

It's just one apocalypse to the next.

And he's like, you know, we try to do good, but always it's just.

It's.

We always, you know, there's always more.

There's always something else.

There'll always be another monster around the corner.

Can they ever really change things?

Stop all the monsters, all the bad.

And I'm.

And Dean says this would be nice.

And I'm like, isn't this what the British Men of Letters were trying to do?

And didn't we discover that that was not a great idea?

That we don't want all the monsters?

Like, what do you fight?

Like, maybe I don't want, like apocalypses all the time, but like, you kind of, you know, good and evil, this kind of life, man.

Like, I don't know, like, you can't really get rid of that altogether anyways.

So I think it would make for a boring show if they got rid of all of that Anyways.

And so Sam asked Dean if he thinks that the blood will work.

And Dean says that he has faith.

Aw.

Yeah, we've got quite a cast on this one.

Before we talk about it.

Oh, my gosh.

Casting couch.

It's the casting couch.

Were they on that show that time with that guy?

So first we'll start with Father Luca Camieri, played by Mossy Furlan.

And he's been.

And he's obviously is Italian and started out his.

His career as a stand up comedian.

Interesting.

Oh, but he's been in episodes of Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, Criminal Minds, One Tree Hill, True Blood, SWAT and Sugar a handful of times.

He's a janitor in the Dark Knight Rises, Terry in Bad Boys for Life, and Switchblade in Jumanji the Next Level and did a lot of stuff.

Margaret Aster was played by Leanne Lapp and she's been in episodes of Fringe, Almost Human Magicians and family law.

She's Gilda in an Orita in iZombie as a reoccurring character, and she has done a lot of Hallmark Santino Scarpati, Holy Moly played by Al Sapienza.

Probably said that wrong, but he's been in episodes of General Hospital, Cagney and Lacy, Knots Landing, Matlock, Dragnet who's the Boss?

Married with Children Melrose Plays NYPD Blues, CSI 24, CSI Miami, the O.C.

Charmed, Prison Break, Fringe Warehouse, 13 Days of Our Lives, Law Order, SVU, Wilfred Bluebuds, Blue Bloods, House of Cards, Arrow, Flash, elementary, Bates Motel, iZombie, Jack Ryan suits, Queen of the South, Reacher, NCIS Umbrella, Academy Tracker, and Elsbeth.

He's also the knight doorman in Pretty Woman.

He's Captain Captain in Under Siege 2.

He's in the Big Short and plays Uncle Bruno in the recent horror film Unholy Night.

Richard Greenstreet killed me when he showed up.

We recently and anyways, we recently rewatched It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and he's a character on there one episode but it's like a notable rememberable one so I'll start with that.

He's in the Santa Clarita Diet a handful of times.

He's Stu in the film Matt.

He's Embers, a reoccurring character in the Magicians.

He plays a couple characters Hamish and Phil in American Horror Story shows up a few times and why in the film xy.

But wait, there's more.

We've Got our fake cop.

Apparently his name is Cromartie.

I think they only said it like once, but that's played by Fulvio Cesaire and he's been in X Files, Jag, Millennium, Smallville, NYPD Blue, Dead Like Me, Grim, Elementary, Flash, Isaac, Zombie, Unreal, Beauty and the Beast, Supergirl in the 100.

He's in he's a forensics expert in the film the Bone Collector, he's the BMW salesman in Double Jeopardy.

He's in he's got a cameo in Best in Show.

I say cameo, but he's a passerby.

And Best in Show, he's a referee in the film Cinderella man, he's the chemistry teacher and John Tucker must have must die.

He's also got a small role in Deck the Halls, the Christmas movie Agent Forms Forbes in the Watchmen, Wendell in Resident Evil, Afterlife and the uncle in Step It Up, All In Antonio Milla is played by Dino Dinicolo.

He's been in episodes of the 100 and other things.

Scarpati's thugs.

We've got two that we'll touch on.

One of them is the first one is the one that does the talking is played by Sean Omaid and he's in a couple of Supernatural episodes, but he's been Arrow, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Bates Motel, iZombie, Lucifer, Once Upon a Time, Prison Break, Riverdale Siren, Nancy Drew, Flash Tracker and Virgin river.

And he is the bailiff in the film.

Welcome to Marwyn.

Our thug that didn't hold the gun rights played by Tyson.

Bella scusi.

He's been Izombie, Wayward Pines a handful of times and Travelers a couple times.

Our woman at the diner was played by Faye Wren.

She at least she's in Supernatural a couple times, but she's been in Lucifer, the Magicians and Kung Fu.

And we will hop on down to I've got a Couple more because it was a stacked cast we've got first off, our hotel clerk was played by Kai Bradbury.

It's been Altered Carbon, the boys in Fire country, and he's a recurring main character named Denny in the series Virgin River.

And last but not least is Green Street's bodyguard is played by Demord Dan.

He's in a couple episodes of Supernatural, but he's been in Painkiller, Jane, Fringe, Once Upon a Time, Alcatraz, Flash, Unreal, Lucifer, Magicians, Altered Carbon, the Good Doctor, Batwoman, Van Helsing, Charmed, Snowpiercer, Kung Fu and was the stand in for Sean Wayans in White chicks.

Nice.

I was like, the interesting ones.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stacked cast on this one.

Really cool, for sure.

Not that we don't often have that, but it's always.

We had a couple episodes where it was like, really just the same.

That's the main characters that we always see, so it's nice to have a bit broader scene.

But.

Yeah, so you're.

I mean, definitely the.

The inspo for this feeling, like a 40s film noir vibe.

I think they hit that on the head.

I think it was.

Definitely had that feeling.

You could tell pretty early in the episode that's what we were going for.

And that was really fun.

It was really fun.

And it was really stylized because of that.

That noir effect.

And so I. I enjoyed the look of it and.

And the pace itself, you know, just.

I think it was.

It was a quick pace.

The writing was obviously.

There was some killer lines in this and things that were just like, really kind of touching in terms of, like, deep supernatural stuff, you know, just like the whole, like, you know, why we fight type things, you know, and really also, you know, questioning Dean's faith and just, you know, and what faith can mean when, you know, especially like, if you don't, you know, you know, for sure that God doesn't give a.

About you.

Like, how can you have faith?

Right, Right.

Like, what can you.

What can you have faith in?

Is it a rock or is it in that, you know, that they're a team and that as a team, that they can, you know, they can believe in themselves?

Right.

So, yeah, I always think that's really great when they bring that back in and.

Yeah.

And just like, I think the.

The Father Luca's tone of, like, the.

The writing about his dialogue with just talking about, like, no, like, it doesn't.

I'm not talking about luck or any of that.

Just doing.

Making choices that.

To make things better.

Like, that's.

I don't know.

I thought it was a really, like, as, you know, you know, it came.

It was presented in a way that didn't feel hokey.

To give a really positive message.

That's what I would.

Yeah.

Because sometimes it can feel like.

Just do nice things, guys.

It's like.

No, it was like a really good way.

It was a thoughtful presentation of it.

Well, and to have that in, you know, that we're still talking about doing nice things.

An episode where we had a mob shootout.

Yeah.

Yes, of course.

I like the contrast.

Yeah.

So.

And I.

The concept of having to steal a holy relic, which, you know, as we talked about in lore that, you know, is a thing that really exists.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's a heist that we don't think about that happens all the time and does make for a really good TV episode.

If you think about it, like, oh, yeah, people are trying to steal, like, these relics all the time.

And.

Yeah.

And of course, of course, somebody was like, you know, mob people will have them.

You know, like.

Right.

Of course there's a black market for it.

And of course it's on the Internet.

Of course it is.

Of course it is.

That's where the black market is.

And if you want to know where to find it.

All right, on that note, I think we'll end it.

All right.

Cheers, jerk.

Cheers, bitch.

Devil's Trap podcast is a Don't get a production.

Meow.

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Going up to the spirit in the sky?

It's where I'm gonna go when I die?

When I die in the lane.