This image …
Tonight is the series finale of Supernatural. I have so many mixed feelings. I just re-watched the first two episodes of the series this past week and had an almost dissociative sense of how much the series has changed its stripes. I can’t think of another example, of a series that started one way and then just completely switched genres/moods 3/4s of the way through? Like, X-Files was recognizably X-Files, up until the end. So, too, E.R. E.R. didn’t suddenly morph into an adorable teenage-driven sitcom halfway through. But Supernatural began as a show in the horror genre – and now is a “fantasy” show. I was thinking about this and even 4, 5 seasons ago, there were still those horror elements. “Red Meat.” “Into the Mystic.” “Alex Annie Anna whatever …” “Just My Imagination”. Whimsical and yet … horror. Now? The show is completely unmoored without its grounding source of inspiration. Like, what inspires it now? Low-rent Harry Potter morphed with Hunger Games? It HAS no “inspiration”. That’s why they’re like “oh whatever, we can do whatever we want with this material because there are no ground rules.”
Anyway, I’ve complained enough.
Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, young men when they started, middle-aged men now, have devoted the majority of their careers to this show – to these characters – and for that I will always be very grateful.
Fearful of the finale. I don’t even know what it would mean, in this environment, to “stick” the landing. They’ve lost so much ground over the years. Either way, though, I’m here for it.
Thank you, Jared and Jensen, for everything you have given to me, to all of us.
Caught up for the last hurrah. Or cry of despair. Season 15 has been such a disappointing vacuous waste of space. Hoping for the best, braced for the worst…
However- I just don’t BELIEVE the past few seasons, to be honest- they really just don’t have any recognisable bearing upon the extremely well-established Supernatural we know. So… Dabb can kinda do his worst… I’ll go and rewatch some season two when it’s over with.
I’ve been reading through your commentary threads and very much enjoying them. And the reposts! So enjoyable to go back to the early good stuff.
The thing that really blows me away is that Dabb wasn’t content to try to put his mark on the show – which was his right, as show-runner – but he had to establish things that then call into question all former seasons and how we “read” them. He wanted to impact PAST seasons too.
The nerve of that guy. I’m speaking quite seriously. Watching the first two eps really made me sad. Like … why would you want to destroy this? Or try to make us see it in another way?
and yeah, I don’t “believe” the recent seasons either. Too many damn people onscreen. Too much magic. Too much … not enough Sam and Dean.
I am hoping that eventually when I re-watch early seasons I won’t feel “the Dabb effect” as much.
Yes.
I remember when Season Twelve aired- it genuinely upset me how bad it was, how much the tone shifted. I took a bit of a relationship break and have been playing catch-up ever since. Developing an ever-thicker skin along the way. There have been things to like over the past few seasons, but I think 15 has been a true nadir.
The penultimate episode was… fine. It was just okay. They didn’t dramatically fuck anything up like I was scared they would. But it all just feels so empty now that it’s made it impossible, as you say, to ‘land’ anything of real emotional resonance. The ‘Destiel scene’- I am completely unplugged from social media at the moment and live in a house of five people, none of whom watch SPN, but the night it aired the news STILL filtered through to me through four seperate people. I watched it and my response was, ‘Whatever.’ Like… they could have pulled that off in season seven maybe? But Cas is just a vacuum and has been for years.
And what’s most upsetting is that Sam and Dean have ALSO had no emotional arcs lately. Even season fourteen had the whole Malachi thing. It was something REAL, dammit. But now- I got IMPATIENT with the ending of last episode, the montage, the driving into the sunset. It felt phoned-in. Unearned.
I fear Eileen. I fear the inevitable resurrection of Castiel. I really hope this doesn’t turn into an end-of-panto roll call but I fear that’s all Dabb really knows how to do. It’s all so petty and so spiteful. The mood is ‘Oh, look how much WOKE-er and more meta we are now.’ I mean, dear God…
I am so enjoying rewatching Season Two at the moment, however.
At the end of the day- we are SO lucky to have over ten years of remarkable beautiful work on this show. I mean- there is such depth and range and complexity there- and in comparison Dabb’s work is so shallow, so… tacky. Good SPN will stick around- it’ll be watched, discussed, and loved for years to come. I suspect Dabb’s SPN will not.
They’re completely different shows in everything but name and cast. I feel for J2, however. They deserved better.
Anyway- I’m sorry for offloading my 4 years of bottled up resentment!
// Like… they could have pulled that off in season seven maybe? But Cas is just a vacuum and has been for years. //
Yes, this was my main reaction too. This isn’t a triumph because the arc was basically ignored for 5 years. They have barely had scenes together for years at a time. And so it felt like the ultimate in fan pandering – this is condescending to say, though. People I like who are Destiel fans loved the scene, and I am not trying to tell them they are wrong. It just felt like, yeah, stuff like that now exists in a VACUUM – and this team hasn’t been bothered to establish long character-based arcs – since the abyss of Season 12, which was so appalling.
I definitely fear Eileen. I am hoping Cas disappears for good.
// It’s all so petty and so spiteful. The mood is ‘Oh, look how much WOKE-er and more meta we are now.’ I mean, dear God… //
This. Yes.
It’s been catastrophic. Interesting how them being supposedly “woke” has resulted in LESS interesting women characters. Even Donna – Donna who was such a chirpy outsider, with such a positive outlook on life – and funny line readings – a breath of fresh air to me – now is all bogged down with “Wayward gloom” – her character basically doesn’t exist anymore. The one scene she had in the episode 2 weeks ago – outside the silo – and she was all somber – and I just felt like … Dabb doesn’t get HER either.
Is this progress? Compared to Ellen and Jo? Who got to be fully three-dimensional people? With humor and toughness and sexuality and competence?
Nobody asked for the entire SHOW to be deconstructed, Dabb. Ugh.
// I’m sorry for offloading my 4 years of bottled up resentment! //
lol No problem! I’ve been bitching about it for 4 years myself. It’s like the show’s SOUL was removed. Speaking of SPN plot-lines. You know how Sam was recognizably different in Season 6 without his soul? He looked like himself, but he WASN’T really himself and Dean could sense it. That’s how I felt watching Season 12. And beyond.
The people are the same. Sometimes it SEEMS like it IS the same. But the soul of it is gone.
Huge bummer.
But I agree with you that we are lucky to have had the 10 years. Quite an accomplishment.
That goes into my stance about what established the still ongoing television golden age (Sopranos to present) – not too many episodes. 20+ episodes a season is just too damn many hours to fill with material. A central premise and storylines gets stretched too thin and the audience has to suffer through filler and scripts they handed off to the intern to write. But hey, gotta get to 100 episodes as fast as possible for that sweet syndication money.
Well, the early seasons of SPN are super strong – even with 20+ episodes. The third season was truncated due to the writers’ strike that year – which gave an interesting glimpse of a condensed storyline (very successful). But no, these early seasons do not suffer at all because of the amount of episodes.
and actually – they maintained overall quality until Season 12, when the show went off the rails. But even there, number of episodes had nothing to do with that. I would say that Supernatural is an object lesson in how to play out long arcs, sustaining them over multiple seasons – Seasons 1 thru 5 are masterful in this regard.
No question about the strength of the early seasons. That’s when you have the original show runners and writers firing on all cylinders. Just, with the mechanics of television production, those people with the original vision fry out or move on. Of the series I’ve stuck out to the end, I could feel when the new phase sets in without looking at the credits, and that Supernatural got in 12 good ones before the wheels fell off is amazing.
ohhhmygoodnesssssss
look, I will just be lurking in the background, offering cold compresses, hugs and hot tea (or something stronger) while this goes down, because as you know I completely bowed out of the last three/four seasons, as you know, but STILL, the PULL of it all. I want to see POETRY, the VIKING FUNERAL, the SKY LIT UP WITH EXPLODING STARS, SILVER RIVULETS OF SINGLE MAN TEARS, YEARNING, PERIL, LEGS LEGS LEGS, HENLEEEEEEEYS, SMOULDERING GAZES, SLIGHTLY OVERLONG TOUCHY FEELY EMBRACES, THE IMPALA GLEAMING LIKE AN OBSIDIAN BARQUE WITH GPS SET TO THE NETHERWORLD DRIVEN BY A WEEPING CHARON AND A THREE HEADED DOG, GIVE ME SHADOWS YOU CAN CUT WITH A KNIFE, DISGUSTING THINGS IN JARS, BLOOD AND GUTS, MIDDLE AGED ANGELS WITH BAD ATTITUDES, GIVE ME RUMPLED PLAID SHIRTS AND BEER SOAKED BAR ROOM HOOKUPS, GIVE ME AN ITEMISED LIST OF ALL THE WEAPONRY IN BABY’S TRUNK INCLUDING THOSE STUPID HIS AND HERS BOTTLES OF HOLY WATER. GIVE ME BEOWULF AND GILGAMESH AND ENKIDU AND SCOOBYDOO, GIVE ME CLOSURE!
and if the final words mention ‘heroes’ I will come at Andrew Dabb with a chilli enema.
lol!!! so much all of this! “obsidian barque with gps set to the underworld driven by a weeping charon and a three-headed dog”.
YES.
Not enough yearning, not enough peril. The stakes are so low, Helena – even though Dabb, in his infinite wisdom, has upped the stakes by mkaing Sam and Dean literally the saviors of the universe – not even just the world – but the UNIVERSE. (there are not enough eyerolls in the world).
GIVE ME BEOWULF AND GILGAMESH AND ENKIDU AND SCOOBYDOO, GIVE ME CLOSURE!
Cosign!
yes and co-sign and just AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH and endless gifs of teeth gnashing and me weeping soft and bittersweet tears of myrrh.
I trust you and all the lovely people you have drawn to your site to give this show the send off it deserves, despite the best efforts of the current showrunners to turn it into the equivalent of an outbreak of norovirus on a cruise ship.
… Croatoan virus, even.
HAHAHAHAHA – YES!
Remember humanity being threatened by a demonic plague? GOOD TIMES!!
YES! YES! YES! to Helena’s comment! That all caps paragraph made me feel more feels than all of Season 15!
“SILVER RIVULETS OF SINGLE MAN TEARS, YEARNING, PERIL, LEGS LEGS LEGS, HENLEEEEEEEYS, SMOULDERING GAZES”
I MISS this stuff!!!!!!!
Feel free to add your own all caps scream to the heavens! Do it!!
Marry me
SUPERNATURAL, GODDAMMIT, I NEEDED YOU TO GO OUT NOT WITH A WHIMPER BUT WITH BANGING!
we were moments away from the banging, I swear to god. Frames.
so glad to hear this that I am now plucking daisy petals and strewing them around the place to the sound of The Bewlay Brothers.
as Sam closes a Mind-warp Pavilion on earth, so does Dean open one in Heaven.
I loved it.
I cried buckets Jenny haha. But that incredible farewell scene and Sam’s loneliness cut deep. I was then happily rescued by a five minute interlude of such impeccable, hysterical nonsense that I could dry my tears in time to burst into more for the bridge reunion.
If 80% of the episode hadn’t been so sweet and moving and quotidian and if it hadn’t been so fixated on the brothers then Sam’s excursion into married life and fatherhood in the most Dean-obsessed way one can possibly do it – from marrying a woman without a face to carefully embroidering Dean on jean overalls to dying under a giant picture of his other family – would derail me completely into insanity. But it was as moving and brother-focussed as I could have hoped for and so, so much better than my various fears that I’m actually quite overwhelmed with gratitude.
I was still crying 10 hours later. Then I slept and woke up and cried some more. I’m headachey and woozy from it all.
Pam suggested Sam just saw a little kid toddling about in Dean-embroidered overalls and made off with him. It was good to laugh through the snot and tears. She also said this felt like a secret handshake to anyone who has ever had to tell someone it’s okay. It’s not okay and it will never be okay, but saying so is one of the purest acts of love imaginable.
I’m glad Sam’s wife was faceless (although, and I never thought I’d say this, and I never want to find out for sure, but I hope it was Eileen, someone who understood the size and shape of what Sam lost) because it let this be about Sam. I think the Covid restrictions actually may have helped the episode, let it focus minutely on Sam and Dean, not a meet & greet in Heaven etc.
This did what I had no expectation of it doing: it made me long to start over again from a place of love, not one of frustration. The light and shadows in that barn. John’s journal. Bobby, our Bobby (what a blessed relief). The Kansas license plates. You can do this without me/I don’t want to. Agent Bon Jovi. I half expected that bridge to be the one from the pilot. Just thinking of Dean, standing in front of his brother’s apartment building, trying to summon the courage to ask him to love him. I’m crying again.
I’m a little afraid to prod at this one too much. Some beams are more stable than others, and I don’t want to knock it down figuring out which are which. The watch, the photos, the alarm clock, the bedspread, the cock of Miracle’s ear, the bowls at the foot of the bed. Sam’s cranky old man hair. The tattoo on Dean Jr’s arm.
The ease and love with which he lets Sam go.
Anyway. I’m grateful too.
//Pam suggested Sam just saw a little kid toddling about in Dean-embroidered overalls and made off with him. //
BLESS PAM. I woke up this morning feeling bereft and dehydrated after a night of violent crying, and this managed to make me laugh out loud.
Only to follow it swiftly with a gut-wrenching acknowledgment of the burden and love behind saying “it’s okay” when you feel like you will never be okay again.
I am with you, Jenny. I feel blasted open, unmoored, in a way that I didn’t think the Show could accomplish anymore. My greatest fear going into this episode was that I would feel nothing – like Michelle was saying below. That did not happen. It wasn’t a perfect episode, but it feels like an incredible gift that here in the eleventh hour and 59th minute, the writers remembered what the Show is about.
THIS is the Andrew Dabb I want, the Andrew Dabb who gave us Red Meat, one of my all-time favorite episodes. I always forget that he wrote that one, considering the drivel that he’s followed it up with. But it’s amazing what we can do when we sweep everyone but the brothers off the stage. I have always been Blaze of Glory all the way, as far as the end game goes, but this episode managed to accomplish the impossible – making me feel satisfied with one brother dying without the other – because it finally FINALLY prioritized their relationship over all the dumb plot machinations that have gotten in the way in the past. It even rectified some of the issues I had with the utilitarian bend of Swan Song, while centering bone-shattering grief and profound love in the same way.
Anyway. I’m glad that at the end of your wild-mad binge of this insane show, you ended up here, crying and grateful. I’m grateful too.
Pam is a treasure. I was glad to have her there, there at the end of all things ;_;
I have always been Blaze of Glory all the way, as far as the end game goes, but this episode managed to accomplish the impossible – making me feel satisfied with one brother dying without the other – because it finally FINALLY prioritized their relationship over all the dumb plot machinations that have gotten in the way in the past.
I’m going to reveal myself as a sap here: my secret shameful wish was for what I call the clockmaker ending, one where they settle in to a relatively quiet contented retirement with each other. I wanted it for selfish reasons. It was a half joke, half dream my sister and I had, to buy a big farmhouse and build ludicrously elaborate clocks together, quiet and closed away from the rest of the world. It’s something we still wistfully joke about. Neither of us have any mechanical skill to speak of. We don’t know the first thing about clocks. It was never going to hapoen. But I secretly wanted to believe we had fictional avatars out there, checking the lore, making dubiously specific bullets out of melted down tableware.
But this was better.
In the immediate aftermath, I was thinking of ridiculous Lil Dean, and crying over how at least Sam still gets to say “Dean” in all the ways he’s been accustomed: cut it out Dean, so get this Dean, I mean it makes sense Dean, jesus christ Dean, Dean stop just stop, DEAN. At least he still gets to say it, even if he won’t hear “Sammy” back.
Then I thought about the parks and the house, playing ball, doing homework: all so goofy, but all things Dean rarely if ever got, all things Sam wanted him to have, now given to his son in Dean’s place.
And then I thought, this is Dean’s legacy. That Sam can look back on all the things he and Dean needed and never got, and he can give those things to his son. But instead of doing it from resentment, something to prove, instead of keeping his long list of justified grievances at the front of his thoughts, he can do it from love. Sam has books and a house and his son has a tattoo. Sam’s life isn’t a middle finger to his dad, to demons, to destiny anymore. It’s a love letter to Dean.
I have my own Lil Dean (no overalls), someone who came into my care after a devastating loss. And it was so hard at first, and for the first year at least, everything I did was a shadow offering to my lost loved one: all the love and care I wished I could give to them, I gave instead to my Lil Dean. It was a weird magical time, and I’ve always been a bit ashamed of it. But it ended up saving us both.
Our relationship will probably always be haunted by ghosts, and that’s okay.
And I think this is what I’m taking away from this crazy experience: how grief is love, and how love can transmute trauma. You can live your life as a love letter. As Sheila says below, Supernatural at its best allows us to project. This is my projection.
It even rectified some of the issues I had with the utilitarian bend of Swan Song, while centering bone-shattering grief and profound love in the same way.
I agree with this! Utilitarian is the perfect word to describe it – the clinical sense of watching plotlines get tied up one by one that built that slight barrier between us and the full emotional impact. It was smart to clear the board for this episode, take the plot out of it, let the heart rule the day.
I’m glad for the chance to meet and talk to you! Honestly, at first I felt terribly selfconscious here, commenting on old entries to a mainly silent audience. But this place and this commentary and these people are amazing. Sheila should be proud for drawing and nurturing it.
// In the immediate aftermath, I was thinking of ridiculous Lil Dean, and crying over how at least Sam still gets to say “Dean” in all the ways he’s been accustomed: cut it out Dean, so get this Dean, I mean it makes sense Dean, jesus christ Dean, Dean stop just stop, DEAN. At least he still gets to say it, even if he won’t hear “Sammy” back. //
Oh my god I love it !
I may watch this episode eventually. It depends on the reaction to it, probably. I don’t know if I will ever watch the rest of the seasons I gave up on. I will definitely never forgive the wasted opportunity with Mary. I will also probably never forgive Dabb, period. And, hell, maybe they should have just given him Bloodlines, regardless, just to keep his hands off the core show. At least I got 11 good seasons, I guess. I’ll be able to look back on this the way I did with The X-Files – I’ll have my favorite comfort food episodes, and I’ll write my own ending in my head.
Sheila, I love your insights and your point of view and the intelligence of those who comment here. I love your passionate enjoyment of the first years and the way you so cogently and accurately describe how I feel about the most recent seasons.
*spoilers* I did like this end: the sad beauty of how Dean’s death freed Sam, the fact that Sam DID have a family, a warm home of books, a son to carry on the Winchester name. At first I was sad that Sam didn’t tell Dean how much he loved him and looked up to him, but it was Dean’s time to speak, his last words, and to the end he affirmed Sammy. After all the struggle and agony, Dean’s acceptance was a foretaste of the peace he finally achieved. And I liked the balance of Sam’s happiness with his son with his grief for his brother which we saw when he sat behind the wheel of the Impala in the garage.
So no big over-dramatic storyline but an emphasis on the brothers – I can accept that.
As expected, the finale came down to the brothers, Sam and Dean, and JP and JA. They obviously have it their all and made it worth watching. Cass not being there didn’t bother me because angels go to the empty when they die, not heaven. I wasn’t unhappy about the ending, but the way Dabb wrote it was truly disappointing. The writing and the acting are what make this show, imho, and they picked Dabb to write this? I didn’t expect epic, but I expected better. Just another illustration of f***ked this year has been. But, just one last question, this was clearly Dean’s heaven, but it is Sam’s?
//But, just one last question, this was clearly Dean’s heaven, but it is Sam’s?//
I assumed personal Heavens were rendered obsolete, and now everyone chills in Ethereal BC together?
Bobby says that Jack ‘fixed’ heaven. Now it’s not about reliving memories but more of the traditional idea of living happily with loved ones.
I expected a Lost ending – devoid of almost everything that drew me to the show, hilaribad in a way that overshadows the whole thing…
…And got an X-Files ending – awkward and anticlimactic, but hits the right emotional beats and nicely bookends with the pilot, bittersweet and intimate.
Think I’m ok with this.
I agree. As I said, this is no Swan Song or Sacrifice but Dabb at least watched the pilot and ended their story as it began. The barn scene, despite what one may think about the way that Dean died, was JA and JP doing what they do best. And we got five years of great + 7 more years of okay +3 years of adequate. I was just hoping for an ending like “Buffy” or “Angel”. Oh, well Wishful thinking.
What’s been really appaling with Dabb’s run is that even though he struck rock bottom in his very first season as a showrunner, he still somehow found a way to keep digging even deeper for the next 3 years.
I mean season 12 is an atrocity that single handedly shifted the whole purpose of the show but compared to the alt-universe, Jack taking over the narrative or Chuck as the big bad… well british Men of Letters (just their name is so silly !) don’t look THAT bad. And God knows they do.
It’s been 4 years I’ve learned to know what to expect from this brand new show (absolutely nothing) but I still wanted to believe and sometimes I almost did ; I’m thinking to “The Big Empty”, “Advanced Thanatology” or “Damaged Goods” (I looooooooooove “Damaged Goods”). It never lasted long though. Even the more wacky episodes, once a trademark of the show, like “Stuck in the Middle (With You)”, “Regarding Dean” or “Scoobynatural” were good… but not that good. If nothing else those more successful episodes were even more painful than the others as reminders of what once was and what could have been.
I have to say though that season 15 has been ESPECIALLY awful ; it’s the very first season I skipped entire episodes : of the last seven episodes, I only watched one in its entirety, “Last Holidays”. The others I simply coudln’t either finish or simply watch them. It’s not just bad : it is of course but more than that it’s an entire new show. There’s not a single episode I realy enjoyed (even though I kinda liked “The Gamblers” though but the bar is so low that it doesn’t mean much).
There’s a pretty great fan made opening of the terrible backdoor pilot that Andrew Dabb wrote during season 9 and I think it does encompass what was all along his vision of the show ; I let you see for yourselves : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbzPhys7XP0
I was an emotional mess after watching the finale last night and I just watched it again and found it just impactful the second time around. I am not unhappy to be feeling this way…..I am very grateful. My worst fear for the finale wasn’t necessarily character deaths or even bad plot lines….it was that I would sit before my favorite show on television for the very last time and feel the same sense of “meh” from the episode that I have basically felt for the past four seasons (with a very few rare exceptions)
Instead, my long neglected tissue box got used in spades and I was completely drained by the end.
I’m kind of with Jenny at the moment. I don’t want to prod too much right now. I’m just want to feel, and be grateful that I am indeed feeling so very much.
<3 <3 <3 <3
I’m not a shipper, I’ve just enjoyed the show for the past ten years mainly for the characters and it’s (mostly) interesting story lines. I absolutely hated the final for a number of reasons but it’s Dean’s ending that disappoints me more than anything else.
The regression of his character, all these layers that had been built up over all these years were stripped away and ultimately all he was left to be was to exist in service of his brother and nothing more. He has no dreams, wants, desires or personality outside of Sam? All those years of character building, of him growing into and accepting the person he always was, of him learning to accept that he deserves to have good things and be his own person – in the end none of it meant anything?
In fact the finale didn’t take into account anyone’s arcs or character growth. Especially when the past few seasons, in particular, have made painstakingly clear that they both need more than that. Family obviously does end in blood and growth and self-improvement mean nothing in the face of a long-forgotten nostalgia. I hoped for and expected better.
At the end, they chose peace. There are worse endings. (There are better, too, of course.)
But JA and JP got to me. In the moment, they made me appreciate what was there more than what wasn’t.
To the point where I was able to appreciate the JP’s terrible hair as Sam aged.
Helena, this is the closest to poetry that any Dabb episode will ever inspire in me:
Those wigs on your head
As Sam grew old without Dean —
Jay, who’d you piss off?
That’s all I got for now. I’m still digesting the episode, so I look forward to reading more posts as they come in.
In the meantime, thanks Sheila for your SPN posts and insights. They’ve made SPN a richer experience for me over the years.
//Those wigs on your head
As Sam grew old without Dean —//
Lindah, I love this Ode to a Bad Wig.
Oh, Helena, there was more than one such wig. MORE. THAN. ONE.
It’s now my headcanon that Sam arranged his hair carefully every morning to maximize its annoyance value in honor of Dean.
Getting flashes Moira Rose’s wig collection now, thank you very much.
Hi,
I just found this lovely place during the last three episodes of SPN. I’ve been enjoying reading the comments and finding older posts about the show. Your thoughts have helped me understand some of my reactions to the later years of the show. I’ve been watching it for 14 years and will miss it even though it’s not the show it once was.
I was afraid that the ending would somehow distort Sam and Dean’s bond or do something that would make the series emotionally invalid for me in ways that I couldn’t quite identify.
Even though I wanted them to die together I figured that they wouldn’t since being separated has always been their worst fear. I thought that maybe the last deal they’d settle on was death for one of them as payment for saving humanity with a clause that stated all deals were off if one of them took his own life. Hoped for a heavenly reunion to be worked out somehow.
Even though my vague ideas for the ending weren’t close to what happened the finale was beautiful in all of the ways some of you have described. Sam and Dean’s goodbye was so true and it cut deeply, just like loving and losing someone does. It was amazing.
And before that-the fun of seeing a day in the life of the Winchesters. The pie festival. The dog. A hunt with just the two of them like old times. The ease and obvious affection between them. It was all a gift that I’m grateful for too. I’ve been an emotional wreak since Thursday to be honest.
My biggest struggle with the episode is Sam’s “…excursion into married life and fatherhood…” as Jessie described it above. I know that for Sam to decide to not live on dishonors Dean’s many tragic sacrifices to make sure that Sam stayed alive, regardless of Sam’s earlier declaration of how they’d die together. (Sam probably figured they’d die together on a hunt.)
As I watched the montage of Sam’s life after Dean I was struck by how Dean-centric it was. I noticed the focus on Dean Jr. and not on Sam’s wife. And all of the pictures of his first family.
It made me wonder what kind of husband Sam might have been.
Made me wonder if what season 1 Sam wanted for himself is the same as season 15 Sam.
If season 15 Sam would do what season 8 Sam did when he met Amelia.
If he met someone would he make it clear that a part of his heart/soul wasn’t available since it’s riding around in an Impala in heaven?
Made me feel so much pain for Sam, who used to seem to crave a normal/safe life but now gets it kind of as a consolation prize.
I think being left behind can sometimes feel worse than dying.
The “Dean Obsessed” marriage, as Jessie called it, made it less epic-brother-bond breaking and perhaps more understandable. I still feel conflicted about Sam’s choice. Which makes me feel childish since I know that the point is that Sam had to keep living. But I wanted him to keep living in a different way. Ha ha ha! I don’t want Sam to have a love story with anyone but Dean. Yes-childish. :-) I hold on to hope since no time was spent giving us any real sense of her at all. (I’m leaning into the idea that a grief stricken Sam had an Pippa-encounter in the back of the Impala like in “Baby” and another baby was the result.)
Having rambled all of that I’m still so thankful for what I did get. Sam and Dean in heaven together forever. No more separations.
Thank you to Sheila for having this SPN space. It is a tv show that can hurt and heal I’ve found over the years. Nice to have a place to acknowledge that. I wish I’d found it so much sooner. And thanks for everyone’s insightful comments.
Susan
You guys have made me laugh my face off, so thank y’all for that. It’s been 48 hours and it still doesn’t seem real that my beloved died at 42.
Yeah, I know it’s a TV show. But all of us have been impacted so, so much by these beautiful brothers and their relationship.
There is peace now they’re done. And yes, holy crap, I am SO GRATEFUL to this finale for showing me they’re really, truly at peace, and not end the way Jensen (and Dean) has always said he wanted: like Butch and Sundance. This was definitely not that.
“Surely Heaven waits for you…,” and whaddya know, it did.
Please excuse any errors in spelling or grammar, because I just rewatched it for the first time, and I came here to heal my wounds. Just typing the words makes me blurry.
I’m rewatching it for the first time later today and I’m feeling queasy because I know how much it’s going to hurt. But want to feel the love between them again.
Earlier today, a friend and I were texting, and he sent me a GIF of Dean sitting at a diner counter with a cup of coffee; he’s grinning at the camera and winking and the caption says, “You know you love me,” and I started crying because Dean Winchester is dead. And then I felt stupid because I’m a grown woman and he’s a fictional character.
It does feel like we’ve lost real people that we knew so I get it. I just saw a picture of the two of them and it made me feel sad because they’re gone. Even though they’re on Netflix right now.
So yeah I found it pretty overwhelming. But – sorry to be a bummer – it makes me even more irritated that Dabb – who was capable of THIS – and “Red Meat” – made us suffer through whatever the hell he was doing over the past 4 years. Like, what even was the point of all of that. Such bullshit.
But anyway, yeah, I cried. It had a lot of the things I’ve been missing (which: see above, made me irritated) … and while there were still little things that show they haven’t fully absorbed the subtleties (sorry, like: Dean is a neatnik germaphobe, Sam doesn’t give a shit about that stuff. The “Dean is a slob, Sam is a meticulous bed-maker” – is the OPPOSITE of what has been clearly established, time and time again in the show – sorry y’all didn’t watch the show, writers – you should check it out, it’s really good.).
But still. I found it fairly overwhelming. What they set up was really good – they cleared out all of the extraneous characters, and that includes Cas, and has for 7 freakin’ years now – like, enough already – and in so doing they allowed for the episode to be a container for our emotions – whatever they are – it allows for all that PROJECTION, which is one of the ways the show always worked (originally). It works through us projecting stuff onto it and into it – reading between the lines, whatever. It allows enough room for us to FEEL things, not just sit there wondering about the plot.
My main reaction is a little bit beyond words – all I will say is, it really really understands what it means to have to say to someone you love “It’s okay to go now.”
If you’ve had to do that, you will know what I am talking about.
And then you have to go on and live your life.
I’m sorry but the little kid charging across the park with the DEAN overalls is HILARIOUS. And … the faceless wife! I really liked that. I don’t think she’s “faceless” because Supernatural is “bros before hoes” (honestly, some of the criticisms from fans … we just live in such different worlds, there’s no crossover to even begin to discuss these things) – but that this is Supernatural, and this is a story about two brothers – and Sam found a way to go on, to find happiness, to have a kid, to do the things he actually DID want to do – from when he was a young man – Dean resented it the first time around – and now it’s like Sam had his blessing. But it’s a MIXED blessing. You’re grieving but you have to go on.
This has always been – at its best – a show ABOUT grief, and how grief FUCKS. YOU. UP. Unmanaged grief alters you for good. It’s altered Sam. And so he moves on, with what he has left, and tries to make a life out of the pieces left to him.
This is DEEPLY resonant for me.
Also: I love the detail they added that Dean paced around outside Sam’s college house – afraid to go in – afraid to ask Sam to come with – afraid that he’d say no.
JA and JP were out of this world in their performances.
I rolled my eyes at the big DABB sign on the pie truck. Woulda been nice to call out KRIPKE. or MANNERS. Not YOURSELF.
A lot of lost ground. But that SCENE in the barn … HOLY MACKEREL.
Hi, Sheila,
Thanks so much for this space to share SPN feelings.
The more I live with the ending the more I love it and feel overwhelmed by it!
Your thoughts reminded me of my reaction when I saw Dean’s crazy bed making. Dean’s room has usually looked neat as a pin when we’ve seen it. I always figured John drilled in military corners or something like that for the bed making! And that Sam rebelled!! (Exactly what you meant, right, about how the show has allowed us to project onto it.)
“Red Meat” is one of my favorite episodes and I didn’t know that Dabb wrote it until I found this place. It is irritating that he could do that and this as well as the other seriously head scratching “I’ve Never Watched The Show” kind of episodes. It does say something that he included a shout-out for himself in this last episode.
The show is about grief, a universally shared experience that may help explain how it stayed on the air for so long. Besides JA and JP.
I’ve never had to tell someone directly that it was okay to die and leave me. But I’ve been the one left. The only one left. And I felt every one of Sam’s years and could relate to the mixed blessing. The bittersweet of trying to do the best that you can to honor someone’s love for you when all you want to do is curl up and die.
The show is extraordinary. I love how it makes me feel and think and think and feel. How it has helped me grow as a person. I was so so worried that Dabb would write an ending that just kind of destroyed what I’ve seen these past years. But he didn’t. He didn’t! It was so SamAndDean Affirming!
Chubby running toddler Dean with those coveralls is a beautiful image. And the idea of the Winchesters going on and on, all meeting up in heaven after their work is done.
Susan
Yay to SPN (dare I say Dabb?) for pulling off one more miraculous deal for us!
Everything you said about Dabb. I will never not be bitter. Never. He obviously was the one who needed to hear, “it’s ok, you can go now” and would he have it could have saved us at least 2 or even 3 seasons of his disinterested storytelling. He treated the show like Sam and Dean’s story was so overplayed and done and then the finale was all, but here’s one for the road.
And yet I’m still so so grateful that he gave us that.
// So yeah I found it pretty overwhelming. But – sorry to be a bummer – it makes me even more irritated that Dabb – who was capable of THIS – and “Red Meat” – //
Actually most of the episode was written by Robert Berens – who was one of the better Supernatural writers at the time – but he had to abandon it when he was tasked with writing the penultimate episode “We Happy Few” in the chaos following Jeremy Carver departure right before the end of season eleven.
Andrew Dabb was a capable writer before he became showrunner (although far from a stellar one) but his best episodes (“Yellow Fever”, “Weekend at Bobby’s”, “Frontierland” and the masterpiece “Dark Side of the Moon”) were all written with his partner Daniel Loflins and judging by the first episodes they each wrote alone (and the last one for Supernatural concerning Loflins), “Hunteri Heroici” and “Citizen Fang”, I wouldn’t deem Dabb the superior writer of the partnership. I feel like Dabb got the gimmicks right but it was Loflins who got the depth.
So regarding “Red Meat”, I’d give most of the credits to Berens, who also wrote “Alex Annie Alexis Ann”, “The Executioner’s Song” and “The Vessel”.
//The “Dean is a slob, Sam is a meticulous bed-maker” – is the OPPOSITE of what has been clearly established, time and time again in the show//
Sheila, if I may play devil’s
advocatesoon-to-be-fired consultant:If it please the court, I would like to present a scenario in which the situation in question, namely the state of Dean Winchester’s room and the messiness thereof and additionally the state of Sam Winchester’s room and the neatness thereof, could in fact be viewed thusly (if one consumes the proper (high) dose of Hand Wavium (TM) in addition to expunging any memory of all the times it happened before on Dabb’s watch – which I highly recommend BTW):
For the first time in Dean’s life, there’s no one to answer to, no Dad or God, no looming world-ending [supernatural] crisis, no big bad enemy to take on. There’s only his brother and his dog and the job. This Dean would assume that he will come home at the end of the day, to the same place, the same room, the same home that he left in the morning, where the mattress remembers him. This guy might think to himself that it’s OK to slack off every once in a while and the dog is going to mess up the covers anyway (because in my headcanon, that’s where they play tug-of-war with Sam’s socks).
This guy won’t have to be paranoid about leaving evidence behind or messing up someone else’s property or annoying anyone except Sam, which is one of his favorite pastimes anyway.
This guy might be able to sleep the way he hasn’t since he’s been to hell and purgatory. This guy feels free (and loves dogs).
Sam, on the other hand would take it all in and think about it. He no longer has anyone or any situation to rebel or fight against, unless you count Dean, but he doesn’t see Dean that way anymore. Sam’s made mistakes and he’s hurt people and that makes him cautious and so decides to do what he judges to be the right thing and the smart thing in all situations. Like jogging and reading [and kicking the 70-year-old washing machine?]. Making the bed is more efficient than not. Keeping things neat makes them easier to find and use. Anything that fosters clarity is good.
The only time this Sam lets loose is when his brother understands and shares his grief and it’s suddenly safe enough to waste some pie. Which Dean will eat anyway. Because he’s Dean. (Headcanon: the pie is also payback for missing/ruined socks.)
This guy would be able to dream and plan the way he hasn’t since Jessica died. This guy feels free, too. (And is now dog-agnostic? but loves what Dean loves.)
I have to admit that I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the profound changes that freedom would kindle within them. I didn’t think that Dabb could do it, but I figured JA and JP could and would.
So that is my headcanon, feel free to partake of it if you’d like. Or share your own.
One of the things I was grateful for in this episode was that there was room to breathe (until you couldn’t!), but it didn’t seem stretched or empty.
[Plus wigs, glorious wigs.]
I was not feeling the episode during the first 2o minutes – it wasn’t giving me finale vibes at all – it was too routine and didn’t have the “weight” I was expecting after 15 years of calamity, gods, demons, death, etc. Vamp fight, what? Then, Dean got pushed into a pole and I got a chill. Oh, no, oh no, oh no. It can’t be…..
That barn scene did me in. Just disbelief, tears and a breaking heart. We all knew that Jensen and Jared could rip your heart out but they took it to another level. After that scene, I could forget all of my negative thoughts about the rest of the ep. Wow, just wow.
I will always appreciate this corner of the internet, where the SPN love flowed and we could discuss the Winchesters.
It is so refreshing to read your reviews and insights, Sheila. Everyone here is so respectful and most of you seem to agree with my own (unpopular) opinions. It’s been great to read everyone’s thoughts on the finale.
I had some issues with the plot and pacing, but Dean’s death scene? Oh. My. God. It took me down. It took me down HARD. I think it could have happened later in the episode and the montages could have been shortened. I would have liked to have seen a little more of them working the case, joking around with each other, getting back into the groove of mundane cases vs. cataclysmic, universe at stake problems. I was okay with Dean dying in such a mundane, stupid way. It was… fitting, almost. Really drove home the point that world-ending, ‘big magic’ seems to have disappeared.
But that scene in the barn… wow. JP and JA really did knock that scene out of the park. It felt 100% sincere, which is more than I can say for Cas’s dying confession. That one left me rolling my eyes because it didn’t feel earned or sincere.
I’ve never really been a Cas fan. Didn’t mind him in the earlier seasons and found some of his quips entertaining. But when they made him the 3rd lead, the story suffered. I know a lot of people disagree, but Cas and Dean just don’t have the same chemistry as Sam and Dean; they aren’t as interesting to me and making Destiel ‘canon’ at the 11th hour was a poor narrative choice due to the fact that they were never going to bring Cas back or actually address it. In every interview, they’re now sweeping it under the rug and not talking about it–except for Misha, of course.
When Dean said “I love you so much,” I was sobbing as uncontrollably as Sam. It felt so right and so sincere. It was absolutely gut wrenching and I didn’t know I could cry that hard over a TV show. Even one I love as much as Supernatural. Having Sam and Dean reunite in the heaven that everyone deserved made me cry, too. Especially when I realized Sam was wearing the same clothes he wore in the pilot. Full circle. It made me want to watch the pilot over and over again. That was hands down, the best TV pilot I’ve ever seen.
I know a lot of people are upset and dissatisfied with the finale. Most are just mad they didn’t bring Cas back. But for me, I was okay with it. It was unexpectedly emotional and focused on my two favorites. As Sheila said earlier, it got rid of the extraneous characters and just let it be about our boys.
From a video chat with Jared we’ve now learned that Jared and Jensen made up a great deal of the dialog in the barn. Gotta share that. Because seeing Dabb get praised is not a feel good thing.
I can’t be rational about this ending because I had a loss this year (my mom to Covid) — it was too close, too raw. I found myself in denial and immediate anger. Dean Winchester does not go out an a nail! But of course, he went out on electricity back in season 1. So for a show called Supernatural we got reality in the end.
If this had been one year ago I likely would have been all in.
But now all I can think is how much happier I would have been with a final save of children and Dean’s satisfied smile. Or a quirky episode like Baby. Ending on Baby (assuming the original Baby episode hadn’t happened, of course) would have been good for me.
So I watched. Sobbed hysterically. Cursed Dabb (which, ironic, because the Js wrote that devastating part of the script) and haven’t really stopped crying. One loss too many for me. But a good ending for most.
You know what would help? Emmy Awards.
I watched it again. I thought I was prepared but I Was Not. That barn scene really is something. The journey they both go on is beautiful and brutal, starting in different places, driven by Dean’s need to express something and Sam’s emerging bewildered grief, flinched away like it hurts him too much to face it head on, until Dean asks him to and then he does.
I really appreciate reading everyone’s responses and working through the episode and the end with you all, even those who didn’t enjoy it – I was fully prepared to not enjoy it, I was fully prepared to have to sit through a bunch more dull mythology or cheap nostalgia or valedictory speeches or white picket fences or some of the terrifying bullets we apparently dodged like Neo (Kansas playing inside the roadhouse?!). I’m sorry this didn’t work for you because I know how I’d feel if it didn’t work for me.It’s far from a redemption for the Dabb years but I’m so glad it is what it is. Michelle, after the last four years I was so scared of being left with exactly that ‘meh’ and feeling like I could easily dust my hands of the show and walk away. Curses! The hooks are still in deep, haha.
Part of me wants to celebrate all the little moments in the episode I enjoyed or that touched me (or (wig) turned (wig) my (wig) brain (wig) inside (wig) out (wig)) but most of me still needs to dwell in it. To be honest, my initial reaction was rejection of the whole idea because watching that goodbye and then Sam’s desolation hurt too much. I didn’t want it for them and I didn’t want it for me. An impending loss has reopened the wounds of some older losses, and with a fresh-ish baby on the scene I’ve been for months thinking obsessively not only about what it means to Be Left but also what it could mean to be the one Leaving. A last act that is built around parenthood and the unfairness of a life that can’t be shared with a person you love is, ah, it’s really a lot. So high five to all the overwhelmed fellow projectors and grievers here and I’m sorry for your losses too and I hope you are staying hydrated. Although I might have been left happier by an open-ended episode that let me imagine them growing old together, I do appreciate the way this choice has both a finality and an openness, and they delivered where it counts.
I’m not really even in a place where I can jump into reflecting on what this means for the show or characters as an arc that turned into a circle, or the Dabb years, or even celebrating the show as a whole, although I have been thinking very fondly of my favourite bits and pieces. If anyone has anything they wanted to share there I would love to read about it. It’s so lovely to see old names here (sheila, pat, lindah, aslan, nighthawk, cassandra, michelle, carolyn, please know I would comment ditto under you all if I didn’t fear to clog the comments bar. H truly wish I had the energy to go all caps but I NEED you to know that Dean wears like a soft wool-looking henley that might be new and Sam gets his centaur on one last glorious, spectacular time) and I also love hearing from newcomers to both the show and here, and my fervent hope is that the show and Sheila’s writing continues to draw people in. Thanks for the good times all and looking forward to sharing more with you <3
it’s OK, babe, I got this – WOAH HOLY MOTHER OF HALF-MAN HALF-HORSE BEASTS I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT, GOD DAMN YOU AND YOUR HENLEYS AND YOUR CENTAURS AND YOUR FUNERAL PYRES AND YOUR FEELINGS, SUPERNATURAL, SO NOW I MUST ACTUALLY WATCH THIS EPISODE, SINGING OUT IN GRIEF, WIG(S) UNBOUND, UNBURDENING MYSELF OF A WILD LITANY OF NIGHTMARE AND LAMENT, RIDING AROUND THE TOMB, DISTRAUGHT, MOURNING HIS LOSS AS A MAN AND AS A KING, FOR IT IS RIGHT TO EXTOLL HIS HEROIC NATURE AND EXPLOITS AND EMBROIDER HIS NAME ON YOUR KID’S DUNGAREES WHEN THAT MOMENT COMES WHEN HE HAS TO CONVOYED FROM HIS BODILY HOME TO THE GREAT BRIDGE IN THE SKY
shakes fist at sky, apologises to Seamus Heaney, swoons.
Or how about these final lines from the new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley:
‘They did all this grieving the way men do,
but bro, no man knows, not me, not you,
how to get to goodbye. His guys tried.
They remembered the right words. Our king!
Lonely ring-wielder! Inheritor of everything!
He was our man, but every man dies
Here he is now! Here our best boy lies!
He rode hard! He stayed thirsty! He was the man!
He was the man.”
JFC I LOVE THAT TRANSLATION. Forever mourned by his fight-family :(
glad you like it, Jenny!
I’m just dipping into it at the moment but I love love love it. I have found my perfect Beowulf, my best boy, the man.
I thought I was prepared. Yes, a lot of weakness in recent seasons. Sometimes abandoning an episode early in. Missing the heart of the show. Finding that larger audience too late. Celebrating the times that it still hit the mark. Seldom getting through an episode without noting things that were missing or just off focus. And yet, always ready to spend a bit of time with the boys.
But, the barn scene. Actually checked the dvr and said maybe out loud, not now. It’s too soon. Dean over many years was the soldier after too many deployments. Hiding the pain of loss as best he could. Tears, many tears. The brothers, the love and the sacrifice. But the bond. And the wonderful work by Jensen and Jared through it all.
Finally found the courage to watch this polarising episode and I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised : it’s far from the worst thing Dabb has ever written. Sure the whole episode was drenchend – no, drowned – in sentimentality (when “Carry On” went on for the second times !!!!!!!!!!!!), dialogues were cliche and of all the monsters he could have chosen to end the series of course he HAD to vampires, the lamest, most shallow antagonists this show has ever done – typical of his complete lack of imagination and ambition, but all of that was somehow expected.
Because for all these flaws, he got the right kind of ending : it was always about the brothers and one had to go in the end, it’s the very substance of the show. I’m glad he didn’t try to artificially rise the stakes for some kind of cosmic last stand : it had to be anticlimactic, it had to be yet just one last hunt.
That said, my biggest criticism is that OF COURSE it’s Sam who’s got left behind : when confronted with ONE final choice Dabb once again picked the most contrived, less dramatic one. Supernatural, at least for for 11 years, has always played with our assumptions about each boy’s character : for the course of the 6 first seasons, Dean the lone drifter morphed into a family man when the mild-mannered Sam became a full-on fanatic/pyschopath. In the “Pilot” Dean is on the outside looking in ; in the final shot of “Swan Song”, it’s Sam. Of course they kinda followed the reverse path from season 6 to 11 so in a way I understand the appeal of mirroring “Swan Song” but nothing that Dean said to Sam in the barn seems to take into account the 15 years emotional journey they BOTH went on : Dean is still the socially ankward, daddy issues burdened marginal he was in seasons 1 to 3, the polar opposite of his brother. “Carry On” could be played right after the “Pilot” it’d still make sense, so it kinda feels cheap and regressive to me as a grand finale.
So as far as I’m concerned “Red Meat” is the true finale of the series. You really can’t do better than that in terms of brother angst. It is far less pleasant for the characters but far more enjoyable as a viewer.
Also, on a side note, I can’t help but wonder how intentional it was to have Dean get killed in such a “penetrative” manner just two episodes after Castiel’s big coming out scene !
//the lamest, most shallow antagonists this show has ever done//
This be fighting talk, my mans
I mean there are a couple of great vampire episodes, “Bloodlust”, “Fresh Blood”, “Live Free or Twihard” and “Alex Annie Alexis Ann”, but even in successful epsidoes vampire tropes never seem to be fully exploited by the show and most vampires look like generic vilains without any shred of moral complexity.
You got Luther for exemple in “Dead Man’s Blood” who says to John that they too got the right to live, but in the meantime we see him gleefully order his goons to eat one of their human captives, so the writer’s attempt at moral ambiguity falls pretty flat.
Furthermore they became during Dabb’s era, along with werewolves, some sort of a generic template for all the monsters so it really didn’t help them to stand apart.
…. bbbbbut benny
//Furthermore they became during Dabb’s era, along with werewolves, some sort of a generic template for all the monsters so it really didn’t help them to stand apart//
Monsters definitely got lost along the way once the show decided that it was more interested in purple taffeta witches and bands of marauding teenagers. RIP wendigoes.
//without any shred of moral complexity//
Well, obviously, one’s mileage varies, but in rebuttal
1. Benny
2. Benny
3. Benny
4. goddam Benny
5. Gordon Walker
// “Live Free or Twihard” and “Alex Annie Alexis” but even in successful epsidoes vampire tropes never seem to be fully exploited by the show and most vampires look like generic vilains//
Would be interested for you to say a bit more because afaik these episodes (and Bloodlust, Annie etc, and others) used vampire tropes very inventively in terms of how they both explored and busted open the toxic Winchester family dynamic.
Oh my God how the hell could I forget Benny ?!
Of course he is awesome but unfortunately I feel he never got a classic episode to shine in except for “Citizen Fang” (another one I forgot, granted) but strictly speaking the vampire case here with Desmond is just a narrative pretense.
I think vampires by themselves are really great in both “Bloodlust” (Lenore, Eli…) and “Freshblood” (Dixon, Gordon…) ; “Alex Annie Alexis Ann” is a mixed bag cause Mama is AWESOME but her sons… well not so much – I like the actors they just don’t have much to act on. I love Boris as well in “Live Free or Twihard” but he’s just a good baddy, not really a morally complex personnality.
That said yes I do agree the erotic vampire imagery often works pretty well with the Winchester family mess, even in lesser episodes like “Dead Man’s Blood”.
But they too often relied on vampires in later seasons as generic baddies like in “Hibbing 911” or “Don’t You Forget About Me” ; I like these episodes but it could also work with werewolves, ghosts or demons, nothing specific here.
So yeah in the end, you could say vampires haven’t been that poorly portrayed in Supernatural but still for such iconic creatures I think there are often missed opportunities here.
Seriously. We’re all about the endlessly variable vampiric possibilities here and what those characters opened up – especially in terms of illuminating sexy-toxic family dynamics! They were used as mirrors. I mean …. Benny. Need I say more.
Hahahaha Sexy-toxic – PERFECT!
Vampire eps always mirrored whatever was going on in the Bellhar(TM).
Belljar or Bellhar – either way! Sexy-toxic vampire mirror!
You mean… the VAMPIRATE ?
the third thing you think of, Paul!
I finally watched it! And I feel like I’m late to the party and in a bad mood but, YES the barn scene was AMAZING! I think I was afraid to watch it so I watched it while I was at work and then I had to stop b/c the barn scene was making me cry and I had a Zoom call coming up!!
I LOVED Dean’s call back to the pilot and how long he stood outside of Sam’s dorm and OF COURSE Jensen and Jared came up with all that I’m not even sure Dabb has seen the pilot. That felt so true and was a such an incredible reminder of how far they’ve come together to find each other again and really BE brothers.
Everything else was terrible and I could have done without it. I never really knew what I wanted from the finale, but I’ve always enjoyed the ambiguity of the show and the characters and living happily ever after in Heaven was just not something I would have ever requested or wanted. The entire idea of Heaven has been a problem for a while, when people were in danger of death all I could think was, “well who cares? Just send Cas to heaven to see how they’re doing, no biggie.” So them in heaven with everyone and together, meh. It’s nice.
I think personally, I would have preferred if they had revisited the losses of Cas and Eileen. It just felt really WEIRD, I mean Sam is all “I’m gonna lose my mind if I think about it!” but then nothing. No mention of her ever again, and a faceless future wife. Dean and Cas is a more fraught relationship, and perhaps I would have felt better with them not revisiting if they hadn’t had Dean ACTUALLY say to Chuck “Bing back Cas!”
I appreciate that the finale was just about them, but it also felt a little strange. All their lives spent saving other people, and then the finale is just maudlin montages of driving and child rearing. The barn scene worked for me mainly b/c it reminded me of better days, I was sad b/c I KNOW this is over and there will be no more Dean Winchester moments, but I wasn’t really emotionally invested in this particular episode. If that makes sense.
I did actually really love that they had to get out John’s old journal, I had really been missing that thing!
I’ve loved reading and commenting about SPN here! What a wonderful discovery! Thank you Sheila for providing such a wonderful space!
//I never really knew what I wanted from the finale, but I’ve always enjoyed the ambiguity of the show and the characters and living happily ever after in Heaven was just not something I would have ever requested or wanted. The entire idea of Heaven has been a problem for a while, when people were in danger of death all I could think was, “well who cares? Just send Cas to heaven to see how they’re doing, no biggie.” So them in heaven with everyone and together, meh. It’s nice.//
If I do have any major beef with the finale, it’s probably this. The theology of it.
While the fact that they get reunited is the only thing that makes Dean’s death bearable for me, and seeing his face transform when Sam arrived and that final hug put me on the floooooooor, I’m fairly ambivalent about this version of Heaven too. Everyone together and everyone happy, paired off in their cute little cabins, is too Lakeside Pleasantville for me, and I don’t think it’s meant to have that creepy undertone that memory box Heaven had from the start. It’s taking some mental acrobatics for me to envision it as a place that’s got some…… texture and weight, somewhere that I’d want Sam and Dean to be if they can’t be together on Earth.
Having watched it for the third time and cried from the barn scene to the end, I get it. I’m not happy about it but I get it. Reading everyone’s comments plus a choice view from social media has helped me to accept and recognize that what I feel is part of the grieving process. What also helped is that in watching it this time, I giggled at the comment that Rufus and Aretha live five miles that way. In a bizarre way, that makes me happy. The fact that our little show acknowledges the fact that Aretha went straight to heaven pleases me.
Hi Sheila,
Just a quick drive by today to say I’m thankful for this place and your insights and the insights of the people who choose to post here.
I am thankful for SPN and the writers, directors & production folks who made, loved and understood the show. (So not all of them – this is Thanksgiving, not some holy day, so I can be petty af.)
I am thankful for JA and JP and their portrayals of these indelible characters.
If I may also add a plank to whichever type of funeral pyre the group chooses to have (Viking or hunter):
One of my favorite things in the whole series was the big brotherly smack and “C’mon” that Dean used to get Sam to sing along to Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive” at the end of season 3. You could absolutely tell that Dean had done this to him thousands of roadtrips before, making Sam engage instead of withdraw to his side of the car. It was bossy and annoying and Dean’s off-key singing was awkward and embarrassing and Sam was not feeling it. But he joined in – starting with a quiet “Oh yeah,” and then singing along with Dean completely, until Dean dropped out and Sam was singing solo.
He did it because Dean had asked him to. Just like Dean had asked for a last Christmas. Just like he had asked that Sam not be mad about the Deal. Just like Dean had asked him to go on fighting. And he did go on, until decades later another Dean said it was OK to go.
Thank you again, Sheila, for this place.
//1. Benny
2. Benny
3. Benny
4. goddam Benny
5. Gordon Walker//
Is two years later really too late? I think it’s never too late to say: BENNY!!
I’m not there yet, but I just finished watching Don’t Call Me Shurley, and season 11 was so clunky although there were some good bits (I need some time to recover after the LEGS moment when Dean jiu-jistues the sheriff in the otherwise terrible Frankenstein episode), and there were moments of grace (Baby). But I know what the finale will be, and I have vague nausea-filled memories of season 12, and I don’t know if I can take it.
And when I see Sheila’s posts for season 15 open with “let me guess, it started with them reading in the bunker” I want to self harm. Are there enough LEGS moments to make it worth watching those next 4 seasons?
I did watch the finale when it came out. I barely remember it – not that it was bad – or good – I couldn’t tell – but because I had become so detached from what the show had become that it just didn’t feel real. I have my own ending, which lives in my head (I’m lying, in my head it never ends).
I doubt Helena will ever see this, but “I miss our talks”. Ha!