Bergamot

Shhh. We're not supposed to remember that! Personally I think Dean handled the return of his mother quite impressively. He forgave her, he accepted her in spite of seeing what a limited, selfish person she really was, he loved her anyway, and he grieved for her when she died. He didn't need to learn any lesson; he already had mastered throughout his life from childhood how to do all these things with his family. The awful part of Amara's "gift", as he pointed out to her, was that it meant that Dean had to experience for a second time the central trauma of his life, when Mary died again. It was a terrible thing to do to him. I feel as if what Amara said about Mary was really a message from the writers to the fans. Specifically, the fans who had criticized them for the poor job they did with Mary's character. "You just don't get it," they told us through Amara. "OUR Mary was much better than the original Mary! She was REAL!" The thing is, though, I didn't object to the writing for Mary because I didn't want her to be a realistic, three-dimensional character -- I like that kind of character! And I didn't object because she was so cold and selfish, because that could have been handled in an interesting way. I objected because she was an awful person, but the writers simply would not admit it -- they kept insisting that she was just awesome and worthy of everyone's love. They are still trying to insist on this, as recently as in the last episode. It just strikes me as funny that this is yet another thing that the writers are trying to ret-con. Hey guys, you CAN'T ret-con what my objection to Mary's character really was, because I'm a real person, not one of your characters. Sorry!

I think the appearance of the crossroads demon in the car was just a weak and unconvincing attempt to counter the pointlessness of the Jack/Castiel B-plot by adding a vague supernatural element to it, even though it doesn't make any sense.

Yes! I loved the tiny little scenes from the show that they inserted. I don't know if all the clips would all make sense to someone not familiar with Supernatural, but they brought back great memories for me!

I agree with this! The actress did an excellent job, and she did engage my sympathies. I think the episode would have worked better for me if they had made her a little less human and emphasized more that she was a non-human creature -- still trying to follow her instincts by taking care of her "family", but not really understanding how human beings work. We did get a little of that with her deciding to kill Jack and being ready to torture Sam into cooperating, but it's almost like she was written as someone nice suddenly going crazy, rather than a truly non-human character making a mistake. LOL! You know, that birthday party for Sam with the party hats reminded me of the episode about the Ghostfacers, when the ghost dragged him to a hidden room and had him tied to a chair. There was a mummified birthday cake with confetti, and corpses sitting around the table with party hats, and Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" playing on a loop. Talk about creepy!! And I thought that the moment when the ghost carefully put the party hat on Sam was brilliant -- both hilarious and deliciously creepy at the same time!

I tried a re-watch of the episode, and while I didn't hate it, it didn't do much for me. I know that the episode was supposed to be all light-hearted and fun, but I have a hard time seeing the story of Mrs. Butters that way. She is a wood nymph, who should -- as Dean points out -- be out in the woods, nymphing. Being part of the natural world, free to dance in the forest and enjoy the light in the trees and doing whatever else nymphs do. Instead she was captured and brainwashed into serving as a "magic roomba" for the Men of Letters in their gloomy bunker so they didn't have to wash their own clothes or cook meals or clean up after themselves. It's kind of horrifying, actually. Mrs. Butters happily accepting as a good-bye present a photo of the men who did this to her came across as tone-deaf to me. I also didn't really enjoy the holiday celebration montage as much as everyone else seemed to. Again, I understand that they were just supposed to be fun, and obviously Dean and Sam enjoyed all the good food, but to me the celebrations seemed artificial and hollow rather than heart-warming. Holiday celebrations are about more than lots of food and seasonal decorations. As a non-human, Mrs. Butters did her best, but I can't agree that she somehow supplied the joy that was needed in their lives. It's like she was able to supply the shell of the holiday but not the heart of it. Compare the Christmas celebration in this episode, with the huge, fancy tree, professional decorations, piped-in music and special baked holiday treats, to the one in "A Very Supernatural Christmas". A sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree decorated with pine tree air fresheners, gifts from the gas mart down the street wrapped in paper bags, and a football game on TV. Yet which celebration was more meaningful, more filled with love and warmth -- and more quintessentially "Winchester"?

This is a good point! I guess the implication then would be that whatever happens to save the world, through Jack's actions or whatever, has dire consequences for Dean and Sam, which we then see play out in the final episode. My current guess is that these consequences, which they are forced to agree to or even to help bring about, mean that they will be permanently separated from each other. Jeremy Adams said something about the reset button being significant; if he was talking about the finale, maybe it means that Dean and Sam grow up differently, without having a bond between them or maybe even not knowing each other. Kind of like having "What Is and What Should Never Be Redux" instead of "Swan Song Redux".

Yes, I tend to take what this writer says with a grain of salt. Part of this is because she and I are obviously watching different shows – I mean, this is someone who once claimed that Season 13 was the “Golden Age” of Supernatural. But there is also her sometimes florid and overripe style of writing, which can make what she says sound inflated and "preachy". I think that she just has a habit of overstating things. I remember in her review of "Lebanon" how she talked about both brothers being “permanently changed for the better” by their encounters with John in that episode. I honestly didn’t know what she was talking about. That’s why I am skeptical when she says, for example, that Castiel says something that is “SUPER important” at the end of the episode. I think it probably has something to do with what she mentions earlier, where Castiel “chooses to share” with a church group the story of his journey so far and “verbalizes his own growth”. Castiel's “super important” line is probably something about how he now realizes his self-worth and his place in the universe, or something like that. I thiink that what Amara says to Dean must be something about Mary, because of what Fisher says about how “Amara knew what she was doing" when she did whatever it was. It sounds as if their private conversation is about something she did in regard to Dean in the past, and what else could it be besides bringing back Mary? As to what great “self-actualization” truth Amara supposedly lays on him, I really don’t know. For all we know it could turn out to be like the brothers supposedly being changed forever by their conversations with John in the "Lebanon" episode, where I end up saying, "Yeah, sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about". I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I hope you are right!

I don't think it was necessarily out of character for Dean. Like gonzosgirrl said, he's trying. At least, Jeremy Adams gave us a tiny glimpse of what is going on beneath the surface with Dean. But I think the real problem is that the show is not interested in exploring Dean's motivations there in any depth. If the show was still about the Winchesters as the main characters, instead of being all about Jack, they would have shown Jack making a lopsided birthday cake for Dean. It would have tied back to Dean wishing for his own birthday cake earlier in the episode (there could have even been some reference to what Dean's birthdays were like growing up.) And we could have seen Dean struggling with his emotions at at receiving a birthday cake, and trying to come to grips with what has happened and how he feels about it now. But the show wants us to focus on Jack and his feelings, and think about what this means for Jack, and wonder what kind of birthday wish Jack would make.

Especially considering that the premise of the entire show, down to its deepest foundations, is built upon the (original) loss of this family's mother. Everything came from that. To use Mary's death this way, to hijack it to serve as a convenient plot point along the road to Jack's character being a hero -- well, I can't understand it either. I do too. Especially after the ridiculous travesty of having Castiel self-righteously scold Dean for not "letting it go", so that Dean was forced to blubber out an apology for suffering from his mother's death. I can't believe that Dean was actually allowed in this episode to say that what happened is something you don't just get over, and that he was still angry. I dread the possibility though that when the subject is brought up in other writers' episodes, they will make Dean eat his words.

In regard to this episode, I have to say that I enjoyed getting a glimpse of Dean's Scooby-Doo "underthings"! (Did he buy them for himself? Did someone give them to him as a present?) And I just wanted to mention that in the DVD commentary on the pilot episode, it is brought up in passing that Jessica's Smurf shirt was originally intended to be a Scooby-Doo shirt! 😊 I wish that it had been! Not that it would mean anything, or that I would want Sam getting nostalgic about it in Scoobynatural or anything like that, but just because it would have been fun. But anyway, thank goodness that Dean and Sam didn't end up in an episode of The Smurfs instead!

Yes, that is the same conversation that I was referencing. And it ended with Sam commenting that all he was saying, was that he wished they knew more, and Dean responding that he had questions too, but that right now it was the only plan they had. For me, the problem is not so much that they aren't doing anything. They have been very active -- going through the Rift to the Bad Place, tracking down Sister Jo, visiting Hell, going after the Occultum, and so on. Busy, busy boys. They are going lots of places and doing lots of um, stuff! But none of it is interesting to me because there is no essential connection to the Winchesters, no personal significance to their involvement. No reason why it has to be THEM, Dean and Sam Winchester, helping Jack carry out the plan, rather than some other interchangeable supporting characters. But I don't really think the problem is that they are not being proactive enough -- I don't think it matters at this point how busy they are doing stuff. And it's not that they are all being too trusting. Well, maybe I could see that with Castiel. When he was gloating about how he was right about Jack all along, it's almost like he was jinxing himself, asking for his words to be turned against him. But as much as I would enjoy that, I don't think it will happen. If killing Mary Winchester did not dislodge Jack from his position as the hero / protagonist at the center of the story, nothing will.

It's been a while since I watched those March episodes (and I only watched them once because I didn't like them.) But that's not what I remember seeing. Dean was not all: "I absolutely and unequivocally trust Billie!!" and I didn't see him "dismiss Sam's concerns." He said he believed in Billie, but refused to use the word "trust" in relation to her. He kind of shrugged, said "I don't know", said that she "probably" knew what she was doing. And Sam on his part was not all: "NO DEAN, you must not trust Billie!!" He said, "All I'm saying is, I wish we knew more". To which Dean responded, "Yeah, I got questions too, but right now this is the only plan we got." Not exactly a ringing endorsement. So I don't see any great significance in their conversation. The way it stands now, Billie has a plan. Jack has chosen to trust Billie and carry out her plan. Castiel announces that he will trust Billie as well, because he trusts Jack, and makes a point of crowing about being right about Jack saving the world. And don't forget that when Jack decides to go after Kaia, Sam is the one who protests, "But what about Billie's plan?" Yet somehow Dean is the one who is at fault for being too trusting? Doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, the main reason I didn't think it was important what Dean thought is that the show has made it very clear that this is now the Jack Story. I find it hard to believe that anything Dean does or doesn't do is going to make a difference. It is all about Jack now. (Of course, if Dabb can make Dean be completely unimportant and yet still have everything that goes wrong somehow be his fault, I have no doubt that he will. It would be the best of both worlds for him.)

I don't know what running a production company involves, but maybe he could find movie or TV projects that he would like to be in, and his production company could make them. Then he can produce the movie and also star in it! Would that be possible?

Yes, they don't even pretend any more to be telling a story about the Winchesters. Dean and Sam are just secondary characters who are there to support Jack's story. It makes me happy that there are other people who remember watching Dark Shadows! In retrospect, it was very cheesy, but back then I loved it. (Quentin the werewolf! Angelique the witch! And of course Barnabas.) I guess we were fans of supernatural genre shows from the beginning! 😊

I wanted to enjoy this episode, because I have missed my show so much. Unfortunately, after watching the episode, I am still missing my show. Remember in Changing Channels, when Dean and Sam were trapped inside a sitcom by the Trickster? This reminded me of that, except that instead of them being trapped inside a sitcom on the show, the whole show itself turned into a weird, cheesy sitcom. And we are supposed to believe that living inside "Supernatural: The Sitcom" makes Dean and Sam happy, and is in fact the fulfillment of their heart's desire. Because Dean gets to eat a lot of food and wear his cartoon nightgown. Haha, isn't he funny? And because Sam really wants to wear a silly party hat on his birthday, and to wear a sweater vest to go on a date with Eileen (but he has to make sure that he gets home early, haha!) I thought that it would turn out they were under some kind of spell, but nope, I guess not. The most bizarre moment for me was when Mrs. Butters says to Dean, "But Jack killed your mother!". And Dean starts to respond, but he is distracted instead by the sight of the delicious sandwich which he has had to set aside because of Mrs. Butters' craziness, and he makes a sad, longing face at the sandwich. Haha, isn't he funny? Because of course on "Supernatural: the Sitcom", Dean is incapable of concentrating for more than a second on the thought of his mother's death, not if there is a *tempting sandwich* waiting for him. When the episode did try to take itself seriously for a moment, like the conversation about Dean's feelings about Jack, or the discussion about Jack being the one who will save the world, it was too jarring for me. I kept waiting for some kind of punchline to undercut the seriousness of those moments, like maybe the appearance of another tempting sandwich. They really should have just left out of the episode anything serious or real. Okay, there was one moment that I did enjoy -- it was when they burst into the vampire's nest that first time, and the vampires were watching on TV the gothic vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows" from the 1960's. I used to watch it after school every day. Hello Barnabas Collins!

Oh, I just saw this! It's great to hear that the character of Soldier Boy is set to appear in every episode, and that "the Soldier Boy mystery will be the main driving plot of Season 3". Good for Jensen! This is lovely to hear. I am very happy for him!

Yes, and that is exactly what Gadreel admitted to Castiel just before he blew himself up, that he had been wrong to spend thousands of years thinking only of himself and his reputation, instead of the angels' mission to take care of humans. It's not a big deal to me either; it's not as if Gadreel is one of my favorite characters or that I believe he is some amazing hero. Although I think he did act to redeem himself in the end, which is not the same as being a hero. The only reason I first responded is that I do think he is an interesting character, that he added something to the story as opposed to being an example of something Carver did wrong. Actually now that I think about it, Gadreel wasn't so dumb after all, the way that he managed to manipulate Dean, and controlled him for so long by using his fears for Sam against him. That was pretty sneaky.

If all that mattered to him was avoiding being held captive in Heaven, all he had to do was to refuse to help Dean and Sam, and not betray Metatron and sneak Castiel into Heaven in the first place to find the angel tablet. That's how he got caught. He risked being taken captive in order to do the right thing. I think Gadreel was already seeking redemption when he agreed to serve Metatron. It's just that he trusted the wrong angel. And he did some terrible things for Metatron, in his misguided attempt to restore his good name. I like that although it was never made explicit, there was an implication that maybe Gadreel was not the sharpest tool in the shed! He wanted to be respected, but kept getting suckered -- by Lucifer, and then by Metatron. Maybe not dumb, but easily fooled? I agree that he definitely was suffering from PTSD from his captivity, and I thought it was another nice bit of characterization that he would rather die than go through that again. Was his final sacrifice self-serving? Yes, in a way, because he could not bear to be locked up again, and of course he wanted to be remembered well. But I think he sincerely wanted to do the right thing at that point. As I said, I liked that the character was given layers, rather than just making him two-dimensional.

Yes, Gadreel did redeem himself in the end, and sacrifice himself in the last episode of the season. But he is hardly the only antagonist to have done that on the show -- for example, Metatron, among others. And I disagree that Gadreel's story took over those last three episodes. In "King of the Damned", Gadreel had two brief scenes with Metatron, where we see him having second thoughts about working with him. Then in "Stairway to Heaven", there are a couple scenes where he meets with Castiel, and Castiel tries to enlist his help. Gadreel shows up at the end of the episode and gets attacked by Dean, and then in the last episode we see him working with the good guys to bring down Metatron. But "Do You Believe in Miracles" is not about Gadreel -- if it is about anything, it is about the end of the road that Dean started down when he took on the Mark. I am assuming this is hyperbole. Because of course Sam didn't spend those episodes doing nothing but stand around and talk about Gadreel being misunderstood; he was working with the others to find a way to bring down Metatron. And most importantly, in the final episode of the season, the one with the culmination of Gadreel's "heroic journey", Sam was laser-focused not on Gadreel, but on what was going on with Dean and the Mark of Cain. I guess Sam calling Gadreel their friend and being willing to work with him might be seen as a problem in the sense that it means that this was a more complex story than some people wanted. I think that there were some (elsewhere, not here) who became invested at the beginning of the season in a pure uncomplicated narrative of Dean is Abusive / Gadreel is Evil / Sam is Victimized, and didn't want anything to mess with it. But in a way, I think making Gadreel a more layered character with his own story actually created more space for what was really the center of the story. It opened up the opportunity to explore the intricacies of Dean and Sam's relationship, more than it would have if Gadreel was just a black-and-white, two-dimensional EVIL character. Of course I don't want Dean or Sam to be two-dimensional evil characters either -- but that doesn't mean that I feel the story has failed if they don't always end up with the "moral high ground". We want to love and respect our heroes, but there is sometimes more to a well-written character than putting them in situations where they are always right. Gadreel worked for me as a character, and so did his story. And unlike some (so many!) of secondary characters on the show, they didn't overdo his story and go on and on and drag it out interminably and then keep bringing the character back after his story was over. I thought Tahmoh Penikett did a good job with the role, and the character had enough layers and nuance that his eventual redemption was believable. So I am glad that they did something with the character besides just make him a caricature of evilness. And as I mentioned, I like that his story actually had a beginning, middle and END, unlike too many other characters on the show who keep coming back.

You might have something here! At least, I can think of other ways to end it that I would dislike more!

I don't want to answer for catrox, but I agree that it was a fantastic scene. Obviously not a fantastic thing for Dean, that's not what is meant, but for the show. It was such an intense and meaningful scene. (And well-acted -- I thought Jensen was especially good.) At the risk of being tacky, I will quote my own previous thoughts from here on this. Billie bringing Dean his death book was an amazing scene that should have been the absolute pivot point of the whole season. The reason it worked so well is that it was an idea that goes right to the heart of what Supernatural was originally about, and that's why I loved it. It was about a human being facing off with a supernatural being (Death herself!), being confronted with an unalterable and potentially world-ending destiny, and then finding a way to deal with it, no matter what it took. Because that's what it means to be a Winchester. Instead what you got as the eventual climax to this story in Ouroboros was two immensely powerful supernatural creatures, Michael and Jack, fighting each other with beams of glowing light energy, while the all-too-human Winchesters simply watched from the sidelines. What was set up in this scene was completely ignored. It was like completely ignoring the fact that it was Sam's destiny to be Lucifer's vessel, and having Season 5 end with Castiel defeating Lucifer while Sam and Dean watched. What a waste. And I have no expectations that the return of Death's library will mean anything for Dean in the end, anymore than it did before.

I didn't care as much for the "Don't You Forget About Me" episode, not like I did "Alex Annie Alexis Ann". For one thing, too much Claire, who always got on my nerves. Also not a very good plot. But I do remember how Alex tried to confess to her boyfriend Henry, before she found out that he was actually a vampire, about the terrible things she had done in the past. It is an echo of the last scene in "Alex Annie Alexis Ann", where she painfully tries to tell Jody, "I've done things", and expresses her feelings of shame. I think Alex would agree completely with anyone who thought that she did terrible things and should have chosen not to do those things. But that's part of why I like her. She does not try to make excuses for herself; she accepts her guilt and wants to atone for what she did. But even though Alex may not excuse herself because she was victimized when she was just a child and basically brainwashed and controlled, that doesn't mean that she wasn't. And I think she deserves credit for overcoming what was done to her, and that's why I see her as a good person who was victimized by a supernatural evil.

I loved Alex as a character! Of all the teenagers the writers tried to foist on us -- Claire, Patience, Kaia -- she was the only one whose story really worked for me. And I thought she was well acted too. This scene where she confronts her vampire "mother" is so chilling, where her "mama" tries to use her twisted version of "love" to get Alex back under her control. "Mama" calls her "my baby girl", claims that she loves Alex and would never hurt her. Yet she is a monster who kidnapped Alex when she was just a little girl, and she and the other vampires used this helpless child for years, horribly, as bait and as a feeding bag. Alex's whole life during that time was a twisted horror story. Yet in spite of what this must have done to her psychologically, she found the strength to survive and break free, and ultimately reject her "mama"'s final attempt to control her forever. And my favorite part of the episode was the way that Jody, who had suffered through her own horror story, was there to help. When Jody told Alex, "Whatever you want from me, I'll give it... I'm here" - it brought tears to my eyes. Two broken people bonding together, helping each other to survive the supernatural evil that ruined their lives and tried to use them in horrible ways, two people who then try to help others who face the same fate. In a way it is a mirror of Dean and Sam's story. And I liked that we saw in a later episodes how Alex, although she was still struggling with the guilt and trauma caused by her childhood, was able to do something positive with her life, forming a family with Jody and Clair, and eventually deciding as well to devote her life to saving people -- not by choosing to be a hunter, but by training to be a nurse.

I don't think Jared was spoiling anything about the last scene; I think the question he was answering was about how it was for the actors, in regard to the order that they shot the scenes. In other words, they didn't shoot the scene with the last moment between Dean and Sam until it was the very last scene that the two actors were going to shoot together for the show. The comment was about shooting order, not about what happens. I think they had talked before about wanting to do it this way. I think it was a very nice idea, because then the actors can put every bit of their emotions into that final scene together, and then have the show be over for them, and not have to go back to the set later and do some other random scene together.