#could be spngate I guess

[wonderlandleighleigh]

Good morning!

I’ll never get over the end of Supernatural. 

I just won’t. 

And I’m gonna talk about it some more under the cut.

Buckle up. I’m back on my bullshit.

Here’s what’s jarring: The end of 15x18 felt so honest. I mean, we can make jokes about Jensen’s reaction shots and super mega hell or whatever, and we can be angry about Cas’s fate, too. That last one, at least, is a totally valid criticism. 

But Ackles, Collins and Speight have all gone on record on that moment in the show, talking about the heart and honesty behind it (Speight and Collins on a virtual convention chat, Ackles in the instagram comments of a woman who worked in wardrobe on the show, though he was talking about the how as a whole). A lot of thought and care and work - and probably fights with the network - went into that one scene to make it land, and if you’ve been actually watching the show, it really does, especially if you take into account that you now get to rewatch the show with the knowledge that Castiel was in love with Dean, and that’s going to give a canonical, romantic context to his actions.

But when we hit 15x19 and 15x20, it...it feels like a completely different show. 

Here’s what’s interesting about Supernatural: Since day one, the underlying heartbeat of the show has been this lowkey feeling of yearning. Of reaching out for something you know is just out of reach. And I don’t know if that was intentional, and I don’t know how they managed to keep that up for 15 years (I blame the cast), but for whatever reason, that feeling is entirely missing from the last two episodes.

That heartbeat just...isn’t there. And so when we watch the last two episodes, and very specifically, the last episode, it feels all wrong. It feels like we’re watching cardboard cutouts of these characters.

Dean’s million year death scene felt all wrong. Jensen acted the hell out of it, but it felt all wrong. The end montage felt all wrong. Even Heaven felt all wrong. It was all wrong, for a number of reasons.

1. The big one being that Supernatural is an action show. And the last episode had no action. The first 10 minutes of the episode is great as a set-up. Dean and Sam keep on keeping on. The dog, the laundry. All good.  

But then we come to the pie conversation, and we find out that Sam and Dean...

Are not actively looking for a way to bring Cas back. 

This is the one major plot thread left for the show to cover. Castiel has been taken by the Empty to fulfill his deal, and if there’s one thing we know for a fact about Supernatural, it’s that these dumb boys make deals and then do their damndest to save each others’ skins from the consequences of those deals.That’s been the through-line of the show sinse season 2/3. 

So why is it dropped here? 

Dean’s acceptance that his best friend - who just confessed that he was in love with Dean - is gone forever is deeply out of character. 

2. And I’ve talked about this a lot: killing a character with a history of mental illness and suicidal ideations and calling it a reward is a bad look. I can’t stop thinking about it, and it makes me feel downright ill. It goes against all of the work the cast has done to raise money for mental health awareness and it’s just a dark, unhappy end for a character who saw 15 years of growth and acceptance. I will never be over Dean Winchester’s death. Ever. 

3. Cas’s love confession is never mentioned again. This enormous, beautiful confession he gives Dean is just...forgotten. Dean never mentions it. He never tells Sam that it happen. We have no indication of how Dean feels about it at all, save for a little smirk he gives when Bobby mentions Cas helping Jack create Heaven. 

We can read the smirk a number of ways. It could be a “yay Cas is safe” smirk or a “Yay I finally get to talk to him about how mad I am that he made that deal and also tell him I love him back” or a “Sweet I’m super gonna get laid” smirk.

But we’re given no real answers. 

Which leads me to my final point: 

4. The finale commits to nothing, and ignores everything we previously knew about the show. It gives no real answers or finality to anything other than Dean’s death, and then, eventually Sam’s. “Was that blurry woman Eileen?” You figure it out. “Did Dean ever see Cas again?” The world may never know. Jared went on record as saying that the finale takes place 5 years from 15x19 but that’s not confirmed because 15x20 makes no mention of a time jump. So maybe it was, but maybe it wasn’t? Why did we get this tiny shitty funeral for Dean when Sam could have called Jody and Donna and Bobby and Charlie and Claire etc. Even with COVID restrictions there would have been a way around showing the characters being there and us being TOLD that they WERE there. A call from Jody, saying she and Donna were on their way? A condolence call from Bobby? Rowena is the queen of hell, and she cared about Sam a lot. She couldn’t call to check in? As it is, Donna has law enforcement calling one of Dean’s phones for help because Sam told none of the people who also loved Dean that Dean had died. Which is totally out of character for Sam not to lean on friends, and also fucked up. What happened to Dean’s dog? Did Sam ever talk to any of the people in his hunter life ever again? If Jack had saved Castiel from the Empty, and it is, in fact, five years in the future, it is out of character for Castiel not to be watching the Winchesters from heaven. He would have seen Dean get mortally wounded, and it’s very out of character for him not to come down and save Dean with his Angel mojo. 

So my big question is this: Why did we watch 15 years of this show only for one of them to die in a really ho-hum, out of character way, and the other to live an apple pie life he wasn’t even happy in? 

I think about that a lot: That Dean’s ending, his death, we’re told, is a good death, and that he gets to rest and be happy in heaven. Which feels wrong.

And Sam lives the apple pie life, which we’re told is a good life and something he’s at peace with, which also feels wrong, and we’re SHOWN it’s wrong, because Sam isn’t happy. 

In the end, we’re told that the only true happiness is in death. Which, for a show that spat in Death’s face - that literally KILLED multiple incarnations of death - makes absolutely no sense. 

And it’s driving me crazy  because I can’t justify anything that happens in this episode except for Dean hugging the dog, and Sam hitting Dean in the face with a piece of pie. 

what the fuck.