Wayward Son

• Eileen's death was so graphic :( . RIP Eileen! You will be missed. Im not surprised though as the actress got a leading role on another show. • I felt emotional when they're checking Mary's motel room and Dean goes straight for the bath tub. A surprisingly subtle, for Bucklemming, sign of his worry she may have ended up like Charlie. It was especially chilling considering the scene that preceded it. • He mustn't be a very good hunter if he doesn't notice someone casually sitting on his couch. RIP Rick! • I'm glad we got a confirmation the British Man of Letters were aware of Mary's death. Considering the fundamental role it played in introducing the brothers to the world of hunting it would have been unbelievable if they hadn't. • If they were such experts at brainwashing why exactly did they not use this on Sam at the start of the season? Especially when it became obvious the torture wasn't working on him. • They missed a letter from Eileen :( . My heart broke when I saw the look of devastation on Sam's face as he read her request to stay with them for a couple of days. I can just imagine their guilt at the idea of Eileen dying thinking they didn't care enough to answer her :( • The transfer of control was clearly something set up by Crowley! It seemed to me that the demon was simply analysing the markers and stumbled across the transfer of power. • I can sympathise with Mary's plight! The idea of losing my free will and self-autonomy is one of the scariest things I can imagine. Especially if I was being turned into a weapon against those I love like Mary was. • Lucifer and Crowley sticking their tongues out at each other like children was absolutely ridiculous. I assume this was meant to be humorous, but it was simply eye roll worthy for me. • I'm curious to find out what Crowley's endgame is. I'm assuming he wants Lucifer to find the nephilim for him. The transfer without smoke works as the demons in Devil's Trap moved from host to host In a similar manner. Have we ever seen demons possess an animal before? • Haha Ketch turned on you LadyNeedsToDie! • I find it interesting that Mary was the only one who couldn't free herself from mind control as a result of Dean's plea! Is this meant to convey that her feelings for him aren't as deep as John, Bobby, Castiel and Sam's? Or are they building up to her freeing herself from control moment next week?

Does this mean we can start calling him Short-stiel? Hahaha

+ Faith -- Scarecrow + Pilot 85 - Faith 08 - Scarecrow 03 - Pilot They went on a hunting trip. And they haven't been home in a few days. 22. Bugs 21. Route 666 20. Dead Man's Blood 19. Nightmare 18. Hook Man 17. Wendigo 16. Hell House 15. Shadow 14. Home 13. Salvation 12. Skin 11. Provenance 10. Bloody Mary 9. Asylum 8. Phantom Traveler 7. Dead in the Water 6. The Benders 5. Something Wicked 4. Devil's Trap

Sadly the show didn't benefit from the uptick other CW shows got this week. In fact the viewers are down again!

I'm not sure if it's a Hell dimension! Based on Lucifer's words I assume this is the place Cas took Kelly to. I can't imagine him taking her to a Hell dimension. I think it might just be a more neutral parallel dimension.

Who has had this agreement Crowley or Cas? I haven't seen the episode yet! Speaking of Crowley, Mark Shepherd was seen filming with Misha for the finale so Crowley is definitely not dead.

I'm fairly certain Cas isn't due to appear until 12x23. He isn't included in the 12x22 synopsis or any of the stills released. I'm also fairly certain Misha was in LA while they were filming this ep, although I'm not 100% sure of that. ETA: Beyond that, from a storytelling purpose Id be surprised if they inserted him into 12x22. Bar a handful of minor interactions with the British Man of Letters, Castiel (and Crowley) have been pretty much MIA when it comes to the BMoL storylines. IMO this storyline is intended to be solely for the brothers and focused on the Winchesters. While Cas and Crowley got the main roles for the Lucifer and nepilihm storyline with the brothers playing supporting roles to them on that front.

@Diane did you mean + for Scarecrow rather than - ?

I can generally sympathise with Mary, although I do find her behaviour frustrating at times. I can understand her wishing to step back from the brothers so she can wrap her head around things. From her perspective, in the blink of an eye, she has went from a happily married mother of a four year old and new born to the widowed mother of two grown men in their mid thirties. That would be naturally disconcerting for anyone, and I can see why she'd return to the hunting life she knew growing up. I can also accept the lies and the manipulation for the simple fact, let's be honest, when have Sam and Dean not done the exact thing when they feel it is for the greater good? And from Mary's perspective it is the greater good. She has been working to try and bring about a world where there are no more monsters to harm innocent people. The only action of hers I find truly disgusting was her placing the life of the brothers in danger by refusing to hand over the colt to Ramel during Stuck in the Middle (With You). I don't count the dying Cas in this because, as far as I can recall, Ramiel never made an offer to help him. As far as Mary knew Cas was going to die regardless of whether she handed it over or not.

I'm gonna go for a slight uptick in viewers but maintain the demo so 1.55 and 0.5

+ Faith + Pilot -- Scarecrow 83 - Faith 15 - Scarecrow 07 - Pilot They went on a hunting trip. And they haven't been home in a few days. 22. Bugs 21. Route 666 20. Dead Man's Blood 19. Nightmare 18. Hook Man 17. Wendigo 16. Hell House 15. Shadow 14. Home 13. Salvation 12. Skin 11. Provenance 10. Bloody Mary 9. Asylum 8. Phantom Traveler 7. Dead in the Water 6. The Benders 5. Something Wicked 4. Devil's Trap

Poor Kripke has really had no luck since he left SN! It's a shame I enjoyed Timeless as well :(

I can agree on there being a decent use of Jody and Garth. However, I'd have to disagree that her use of Bobby and Hallucination!Lucifer could be seen as signs of her commitment to continued use of side characters. In my opinion Bobby only got as big of a role in season seven due to the fact that it was being written as a send off. Had she of stayed he would no longer have been around for season 8 bar perhaps the one off appearance he got under Carver! To me it's the same as how she gave Castiel a prominent role in season 6 only to ditch him for large parts of season 7. I also wouldn't count Hallucination!Lucifer for the simple fact that IMO he technically wasn't another character. He was actually an extension of Sam's battered psyche. Although I am aware that there are other fans who view him as legit Lucifer communicating from the cage. So if yours one of those fans I'm happy to disagree about that :). Ultimately, based on what we were given i.e the villainisation of Castiel, the killing off of Bobby and so on I feel Sera Gamble was gearing the show back towards a brother heavy s1-3 feel. In my opinion, like with those seasons, most episodes would have featured just the brothers. There would have been recurring characters, but they'd have been limited to the likes of Jody who only appear 2-3 times a season. I don't think we'd have had additional series regulars under Gamble based on her words off screen and what she gave us on screen. Of course that's speculation on my part so I can understand if you perceive it differently. I actually feel that Sam was given some motivation for his actions in S4. Personally, I didn't need to see a specific event to explain why he started drinking the demon blood. For me it was obvious that it was the death of Dean and the anger and desperation it invoked that led to Sam being willing to do whatever it took to see Lilith dead. I actually prefer to think of it being caused by something as major as Dean's death than reduced to say his pride being hurt because he couldn't kill a demon on a hunt with Ruby or whatever. Although I understand that milages may vary. However, even if I did share your viewpoint I would still say Castiel didn't get a much better deal. One episode simply wasn't enough to make up for a season of Castiel being secretive and behaving in a suspicious manner. Although to his credit Ben Edlund did his best with the little time he was allowed to explore Castiel's motivations. For me this is shown by the fact that bar Cas leaning fans, who watch things related to him carefully, many fans seem to still misunderstand his actions in season six. I'm not going to name individual posters, because that would be wrong of me and I honestly can't remember off the top of my head, but even on here I've seen posters write as though they believe the opening of purgatory and the breaking of Sam's wall were about power for powers sake. If so many of the audience were left with such a gross misconception then Gamble failed somewhere, or as I suspect just didn't care enough to explore it in the detail needed.

+ Faith -- Scarecrow + Pilot 82 - Faith 17 - Scarecrow 12 - Pilot They went on a hunting trip. And they haven't been home in a few days. 22. Bugs 21. Route 666 20. Dead Man's Blood 19. Nightmare 18. Hook Man 17. Wendigo 16. Hell House 15. Shadow 14. Home 13. Salvation 12. Skin 11. Provenance 10. Bloody Mary 9. Asylum 8. Phantom Traveler 7. Dead in the Water 6. The Benders 5. Something Wicked 4. Devil's Trap

I'd have to agree with @Demented Daisy . Honestly, if that was said it comes across as a bit arrogant to just assume it was that storyline considering the fact there were multiple storyline going on in the show at that time. Plus outside factors like time slots changes, Netflix and other streaming deals etc.

Actually it didn't. The move from Friday occurred at the start of season eight, which was long before Dean was given the mark of Cain myth arc.

To be fair I did say there were few outside of that faction that she hadn't alienated i.e there were some not alienated there just weren't many IMO. I'm going to edit my post to include the Sam leaning fans as a group she didn't alienate though ;) . But the fact remains she managed to alienate a number of fans including the Castiel fans, the Bobby fans, the overall team free will fans, hell she even alienated lovers of the impala by attempting to strip the show back to the brother only utopia the brother only crowd are calling out for. The appearance of most of the characters you mention as recurring are bare minimum and two of them (Charlie and Kevin) were only introduced at the very end of her tenure. Additionally, I've said in the past, I suspect a lot of the final few episodes of season seven were heavily influenced by Carver. As shown by the sudden return of side characters from 17x18 on after their absence from the rest of the season and the sudden return to the Angel and demons storyline. A storyline she had taken care to move on from when she introduced the Levithians. In regards to the writing quality I will concede that her writing was better when it came to the brothers. Sera Gamble did care about them both and it showed in her writing. However, her writing for everyone else was appalling. She had no interest in the other characters and it showed IMO. For instance Bobby was grossly misused when he was made into a ghost. This was a man who had always advocated moving on when your time came and wouldn't have wanted to become the thing he spent his life hunting. Then there is Castiel who is the worst victim of her tenure. As far as I'm concerned her writing for him was filled with outright malice and attempts at character assassination. She went and turned a protagonist into an antagonist with little explanation during her first year in charge of the show. If that wasn't bad enough she then unceremoniously killed him off to avoid having him on the show for most of the season. Then when he does return he's quickly dumped into a mental hospital as a form of escapism and used for comic relief. At best he's allowed to assist in a kill which ultimately went to Dean rather than him. It is this lack of follow through that will make me, as a Castiel leaning fan, eternally resent the woman's treatment of him while acting as show runner. If one wants to turn a beloved character bad then they need to have the gumption to follow it through with a proper redemption arc. When I compare how they handle Sam's redemption in seven five, a time when we get to see his daily struggles, his quest to atone, his quest to reearn Dean's trust, to Castiel in season seven the writing falls very short. A few flashy sequences is poor writing and a cop out in comparison to truly exploring the psyche of someone who did what Castiel did and showing his day to day struggles to atone. My complaints are further strengthened by the fact Misha revealed at a con that Ben Edlund had to fight hard against her so we could get an episode showing us Castiel's motivation. If it weren't for Edlund she wouldn't even had the graciousness to show us to properly show us why Cas did what he did. While I would agree with the fact that the early Carver years weren't good for Sam I think he did make some attempts at appeasing the fan leaning fans like yourself. For instance he handed the trial storyline to Sam allowing him to play a pivotal role in the myth arc of the season (at least until the trials were abandoned but that's Carver for you) and further efforts were placed in showing him interacting with others such as Castiel and Jody during season 9. Furthermore, the finales of seasons 8-10 usually included a big scene where Sam and Dean reiterate how much the other means to them. So I'd say overall the Carver era was beyond awful for Sam and I can understand why it would have been too little too late for many Sam leaning fans, but he did attempt to throw the odd crumb in the direction of Sam fans. This is a lot more than can be said for Gamble who threw most characters who weren't Sam and Dean under a bus.

If we bear in mind the fact that a fans perception of the show is very different to the networks i.e the fans view it as a creative endeavour while the network view it as a product to make money from via ads and other revenue then Jeremy Carver is the post Kripke show runner the CW would welcome back with open arms. IMO the show runners performed as follows. Sera Gamble Creatively: She was a failure! She made the mistake of tailoring the show to suit the needs of a very small, but very loud sub-section of fandom. Not only did she succeed in alienating other sections of the fandom such as the Team Free Will fans, the Castiel fans and the Dean fans in the process, but she made the fundamental mistake of alienating the general audience too. There's a reason few outside of the extreme "brother only" subsection and the Sam leaning fans remember her tenure with particular fondness. Business: Here she proved to be a failure too mainly due to her alienation of the general audience in favour of appeasing one section of online fandom. A lot of people give her leeway because of the move to Friday night, which is true to a certain extent, but if one looks at the ratings the first five episodes of season 6 averaged a 1.1 rating on a Friday night and her first season averaged 0.99, while her final five episodes of season seven aired 0.7 and the overall final season 0.72. This shows people were willing to follow the show to Friday nights. They just didn't like what Gamble was giving them and that resulted in a 37% drop between the first quarter of season 6 and the last quarter of season 7. Jeremy Carver Creatively: With the exception of a few potentially interesting ideas like the trials and the Mark of Cain I'd consider him a failure on this front too. He put the plot before characters, which resulted in poor characterisation and no sufficient attempts were made to explain why the characters were behaving in such an unusual manner. Furthermore, he practically destroyed the canon that came before him resulting in what I commonly refer to as LOL!Canon. In addition to this, the plot lines of his seasons often came across as rehashes of earlier seasons. Business: For all his creative faults the man was a success from a business viewpoint. The shows ratings went from strength to strength throughout the course of seasons 8, 9 and the first half of season 10. They did fall slightly for the latter part of 10, but they stabilised for 11 and remained something the CW could be happy with. IMO a part of this was the move back to mid week and a part of it was he learnt from Sera Gamble's mistake. For all his creative faults, which would serve to irritate the nitpicky fandom, he knew how to create storylines that would appeal to the average audience who were only watching for an hour of entertainment and wouldn't mind things like tweaks to the shows lore. He was also smarter when it came to fandom and made sure to include scenes that would appeal to the team free will fans, the Cas fans, the Crowley fans, the fans of those who prefer the brothers to have others to interact with, those who like big mytharcs, those who are primarily Dean fans, those who are primarily Sam fans and of course those who were fond of the brothers bond and those who wanted only them. At times I feel this served to create an inconsistent narratives, but nonetheless he still gave something to keep the varying fandom interest in continuing. Andrew Dabb Creatively: This one is much harder to judge for the simple fact he has only aired one season so far, while the others have aired their entire tenure. So far I wouldn't label him an out and our failure, but he certainly has his flaws! In particular he needs to strengthen his writing of the relationship between the brothers which has come across as quite lacklustre this season. Business: I'm not too sure how this one should be viewed. On the one hand, he's had a drop and a new series low in the demo. On the other hand, the shows drop has been rather mild when compared to other CW shows like the Flash and Arrow. I'd imagine from a business viewpoint the CW probably aren't very happy, but at the same time they aren't overly worried just yet. I actually feel the opposite when I hear of actresses like Jennifer Morrison, or writers like Eric Kripke who make the decision to quit when they're no longer feeling it / feel they've told the story they want to tell! To me that displays artistic integrity and an interest in doing justice to the fans who've been following the show all along. It is better to end things on a creative high than allow it to stagger to an excruciating finish. For me there is nothing worse than actors / writers who are happy to stay with a show and throw out sub-standard work for the sake of a steady paycheck. I instantly lose a lot of respect for them when I get the impression this is the case.

I would have to agree with @catrox14. As far as I can recall the show has always used it as the opening theme of the final episode of the season! The only exception to this was in season one where they used it before the second last episode. However, I've always had the impression Carry On wasn't originally intended to be a thing! I think they used it, realised how fitting to the show it was, and then it's usage for the finale became a thing from season 2 on.

Thats it! Giving you panic attacks is my mission in life ;) . And yeah I definitely agree someone is going to go this year! I think Garth is a definite! It's pretty much the shows MO to bring back a character we haven't seen in seasons (the last we saw of him was s9 right?) only to kill him off! I also think Eileen is a high possibility but I'm not as sure of her as I am about Garth. In regards to the main four I don't think either brother is going to die this year (even temporarily but as I speculated earlier I could see a dimension shift for one or both of them. Crowley I think will live and I've been speculating that this is the end of Misha / Cas since early in the season and my stance hasn't changed. If he survives the writers are in "we can't be bothered with Cas character development! Let's make him evil" mode so we can look forward to Nepilihim possessed Cas.

I think I'd be happy to welcome him back as a general writer with absolutely no influence on the story arc / bigger picture of the season since he has written some amazing episodes. However, as a show runner / someone in a position of power definitely not! He's already almost ruined the show for me once! I don't need him to do it again.

-- Scarecrow + Pilot + Faith 82 - Faith 19 - Scarecrow 17 - Pilot 01 - Devil's Trap They went on a hunting trip. And they haven't been home in a few days. 22. Bugs 21. Route 666 20. Dead Man's Blood 19. Nightmare 18. Hook Man 17. Wendigo 16. Hell House 15. Shadow 14. Home 13. Salvation 12. Skin 11. Provenance 10. Bloody Mary 9. Asylum 8. Phantom Traveler 7. Dead in the Water 6. The Benders 5. Something Wicked

I'm so sad to hear about Jennifer's departure :( . Emma was one of my favourites along with Regina and -le gasp- Henry! Im not at all fond of the idea of a reboot so IMO they should just make the next episode the series finale.

I'm gonna ask in here rather than all episodes so you can avoid spoilers... Now that you're done the Kripke Era (Sera Gamble takes over show running duties for 6-7) what are you overall thoughts on the show? Favourite season? Favourite character? Favourite relationships? Favourite aspects of it?

Oh I am not disputing that Dean felt loyal to Benny due to their time together in Purgatory. However, I still find the idea of comparing the "betrayals" of someone he has only known for a year, and had a mutual dependence on for survival during most of that time, to someone he has known his entire life and lived in both extreme and day to day situations with absolutely ridiculous. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is a comparison Dean can fairly make when he has known Benny for thirty odd years and given the vampire numerous chances to potentially betray them. Exactly! I do believe from his actions in Taxi Driver Benny genuinely saved Cas' life for Dean sake. However, prior to that Dean (and the viewers) had no real way of knowing with one hundred certainty whether it was a genuine act, or simply done as a way to earn Dean's trust.