History Recap / SupernaturalS11E14TheVessel

* ChekhovsGun: In keeping with his previous appearances, Lucifer is extremely powerful, which allows Lucifer to keep Castiel suppressed in his own vessel (makes sense, given that he's not only an archangel, but the second archangel). Midway through the episode, Lucifer!Cas mixes a potion that calls for the power of an archangel. Not knowing Lucifer is in Castiel's vessel and believing Castiel's lower tier angel powers to not be strong enough, Sam reminds Cas that the last time the latter needed a super charge, he touched Bobby's soul for a boost. The series has long established that those who are possessed are fully aware of what's going on around them, even when they aren't in control. Later on, Lucifer!Cas decides to get rid of Sam by touching Sam's soul (a procedure in which the vessel exploding is a well-known possible outcome). When Lucifer!Cas touches Sam's soul, Castiel emerges and briefly takes control of his vessel. It's likely touching Sam's soul was what gave Cas the turbo boost he needed to briefly surface and save Sam's life and it all stemmed from Sam reminding Cas of how to get a power boost.

* ChekhovsGun: In keeping with his previous appearances, Lucifer is extremely powerful, which allows Lucifer to keep Castiel suppressed in his own vessel (makes sense, given that he's not only an archangel, but the ''first'' archangel). Midway through the episode, Lucifer!Cas mixes a potion that calls for the power of an archangel. Not knowing Lucifer is in Castiel's vessel and believing Castiel's lower tier angel powers to not be strong enough, Sam reminds Cas that the last time the latter needed a super charge, he touched Bobby's soul for a boost. The series has long established that those who are possessed are fully aware of what's going on around them, even when they aren't in control. Later on, Lucifer!Cas decides to get rid of Sam by touching Sam's soul (a procedure in which the vessel exploding is a well-known possible outcome). When Lucifer!Cas touches Sam's soul, Castiel emerges and briefly takes control of his vessel. It's likely touching Sam's soul was what gave Cas the turbo boost he needed to briefly surface and save Sam's life and it all stemmed from Sam reminding Cas of how to get a power boost.

* GratuitousGerman: The German officer speaks some German on the phone at the start of the episode. The grammar of the lines is almost correct and the actor doesn't mangle the pronunciation so badly as to be unintelligible, but it's still very obvious that the production team didn't bother to find someone who is actually fluent in German or at least has spent some time surrounded by native speakers (e.g. as a soldier or exchange student). Sam also mispronounces the word "Ahnenerbe" so badly that a native speaker wouldn't recognize what he means without trying to spell out what he says and then reverse-engineering the intended word taking common mistakes into account.[[note]]He says "Annenerbe", which sounds like the inheritance of someone called "Anne" or maybe the heritage of some order of nuns calling themselves "Annes" after a saint. The H in "Ahnen" (English: ancestors) means that it should be pronounced with a long A, like in "bath".[[/note]]

* ArtifactOfDoom : A "Hand of God" is not ''literally'' a hand of God, but an artifact that is said to have been touched by God and thus contains some of his power. The object in this episode is a chunk of wood that is revealed to be a fragment of TheArkOfTheCovenant.

* ChekhovsGun: In keeping with his previous appearances, Lucifer is extremely powerful, which allows Lucifer to keep Castiel suppressed in his own vessel. Midway through the episode, Lucifer!Cas mixes a potion that calls for the power of an archangel. Not knowing Lucifer is in Castiel's vessel and believing Castiel's lower tier angel powers to not be strong enough, Sam reminds Cas that the last time the latter needed a super charge, he touched Bobby's soul for a boost. The series has long established that those who are possessed are fully aware of what's going on around them, even when they aren't in control. Later on, Lucifer!Cas decides to get rid of Sam by touching Sam's soul (a procedure in which the vessel exploding is a well-known possible outcome). When Lucifer!Cas touches Sam's soul, Castiel emerges and briefly takes control of his vessel. It's likely touching Sam's soul was what gave Cas the turbo boost he needed to briefly surface and save Sam's life and it all stemmed from Sam reminding Cas of how to get a power boost.

* {{Ghostapo}}: The Nazis have access to supernatural augmentations that allowed them to track down the submarine containing the Hand of God. The commander in charge of the german destroyer is the same man who the Men of Letters agent killed at the beginning of the episode, only his augmentations healed him.

* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: Sam trying to will Castiel to reclaim his vessel. It doesn't work, both because Castel believes Lucifer is the only one capable of killing Amara, and because he ''knows'' only Lucifer cab save Dean.